Wednesday 1 April 2015

Insurgent | Book - Movie Adapataion | FTM




One choice can transform you-or it can destroy you. But every choice has consequences, and as unrest surges in the factions all around her, Tris Prior must continue trying to save those she loves--and herself--while grappling with haunting questions of grief and forgiveness, identity and loyalty, politics and love. Tris's initiation day should have been marked by celebration and victory with her chosen faction; instead, the day ended with unspeakable horrors. War now looms as conflict between the factions and their ideologies grows. And in times of war, sides must be chosen, secrets will emerge, and choices will become even more irrevocable--and even more powerful. Transformed by her own decisions but also by haunting grief and guilt, radical new discoveries, and shifting relationships. Tris must fully embrace her Divergence, even if she does not know what she may lose by doing so.

- IMBD storyline synopsis.



I am a very big fan of the Divergent series, the books as well as the films. Insurgent was my least favourite book in the trilogy, having watched the movie trailer I knew that I couldn't go into the film expecting the book. It is impossible and I mean impossible for any book to be adapted to be exactly like the book, nothing can be perfect. There are always going to be changes and there is always going to be something different. I really loved this film, to me everything that they did made sense, yes there were a few things that I was bothered with but it never really distracted me. As a book-movie adaptation I would say they scored a 65%, as a film 85%.

Like many others I went into this film thinking I would really hate it because of the inaccuracy. However, I did not let the negativity affect my judgement of this film. The last time I read this book was when it was originally released so my memory was a little foggy. Sequels in books, especially sequels that are in the middle are sometimes a bridge leading to the next book, if I remember correctly nothing action packed happened in the book it was a more of a travelling kind of story. Movies and books are two complete different forms of entertainment. The writers are obviously going to add scenes that did not exist in the books to keep things interesting, these movies aren't just made for the book fans they want to attract more people. For book fans, a travelling story can be very entertaining but for others it may not. 

A huge controversy with this adaptation is that the storyline was slightly altered. I am not denying that because it definitely was. I found that the change in storyline was fine, there has been other book-movie adaptations where the storyline completely changes the entire movie franchise. The changes in the film made sense, it may take a few moments to really soak in what just happened but in reality it makes sense to the movie storyline. It's obvious that a change isn't going to make sense with a books storyline because it's different. These films are adaptations it's someones take on another person's    creation, it's not Veronica Roth's film it's the directors film, the actors, the writers, the producers and all of the creators who were involved. Yes it would have been nice to have more of Insurgent the book in the movie but we don't live in a perfect world, these movies aren't just created for fans of the books they're created for all audiences and that results in change. I actually found the way they interrupted the scenes in the book very clever.

One of the problems I had with this film was the writing/script. This film had a lot of action that did not occur in the books, I didn't really mind the extra action. My problem was the writing, it seemed like so much of the film was just action, action, action, more action then dialogue. I completely respect that decision, but the lack of dialogue made things a little more difficult to connect to especially the scenes that were very emotional. This movie felt very short for a two hour movie and I feel like the constant action sequences were the reason why. There were so many moments where we would be able to feel for these characters but it was so rushed into other action scenes. I couldn't really feel for the characters, I mean it is marketed as an action film but I still wish we had more time on those moments. (It also makes sense on why there was a little bit of an excessive amount of action, the director Robert Schwentke has made quite a few actions films in his time.)

I feel like the creators of this film focused more on the visuals then they did on the writing which is not necessarily a bad thing. Except, it kind of lacked realism. One thing that I found was lost was the essence of Divergent. I feel like the action and the use of CGI took away from that essence and that aspect was something that I found incredibly unique and special about the film and it was lost in this film. The only time I thought that it was there was the ending scenes where all of the factions are walking towards the wall and that was disappointing because it seemed they only added that scene for dramatic affect, and that was the only scene where I felt the empowerment of Divergent.

An aspect of the film that I actually really enjoyed was the whole situation with unlocking the box. It did not take away from the Edith Prior video. It just made it a little more interesting and entertaining. I wouldn't say it was really needed to add that, if anything they just enhanced the idea of finding the video and just made things a lot more complicated. Yes, maybe they just added that in as a time filler but I thought it was extremely creative.

There were also many things that I hoped that they would include such as the peace serum scene, Suki Waterhouse as Marlene, more of the factions, more of the factionless and most of all the relationships and friendships. I had a problem with this aspect with the last film. Throughout the whole film, we are focussing on Tris and Four and occasionally Jeannine. We barely got to see the other relationships with other characters, like Christina and Tris, Marlene and Uriah. Again, too much action not enough dialogue.

Some of the characters that I hated in the books were Caleb and Peter. I don't hate Ansel Elgort or Miles Teller just so I can clarify. It really frustrated me how Caleb didn't do anything when Tris was being choked to death, just because you can't fight does not mean you cannot at least try and help your own sister. In fact I actually liked Peter's character in this film, maybe because his role was more of the comic relief.

I feel like so many people are over exaggerating, they keep saying that they've ruined the entire plot line for Allegiant. There are so many other things in Allegiant then the wall. These changes haven't affected much as people think. Just because a box is added, a few scenes are told differently then they were in the book does not mean that they have ruined an entire storyline. I do agree on everything feeling forced and rushed. Sometimes you have to remember that books can be difficult to adapt for the screen and that will result in multiple changes, I have kind of learned to live with it and I don't judge my opinion solely based on the accuracy of something.

Overall, I loved the film and it's changes. I kind of judged this film on two different scales, a book-movie adaptation scale and a general movie scale. Yes it wasn't the best loyal book-movie adaptation but I feel that it was a great film. I loved the changes they made, yes some of it was a little excessive but you have to get over it because nothing is perfect and you can't just go around expecting every book-movie adaptation to live up to your expectations or exceed them. I would rate this film as a book-movie adaptation as a 3 out of 5 stars and just a general film 4 out of 5 stars. Now I just really want to re-read all of the books and just experience the world all over again.

I hope you enjoyed reading this review!

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P.S. CHECK OUT VERONICA'S REVIEW OF THE FILM HERE

You can read my Divergent Movie Review HERE






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