Insurgent Movie Review
Insurgent Review – Grand View Movie night
By: Travis Barton
A soft yet pungent smell pierces your nose. A sweet and salty snack rests in your lap. Hushed voices echo in your ears. The tiny rattle of liquid and ice cubes emanates from the neighbor to your right. Your fingers constantly rub buttery oils off on a napkin. Besides the dimly lit lights and 80 foot screen, you are shrouded in blackness. These are the sights, sounds and feels of a movie theater experience. This is the experience of a Grand View student at least once a month. The student activities committee offers a free movie night once every month at the Cobblestone 9 movie theater at 8501 Hickman Rd. for all Grand View students. One of the available movies for students to watch on Thursday, March 26 will be Insurgent, based on the book of the same name and sequel to Divergent, which came out a year ago.
Set in a dystopian future Chicago where society has been split into 5 factions based on perceived personality traits at the age of 16, Insurgent follows the story of teenage girl Tris and her ploys to overthrow the political system of the factions. It’s an extremely intriguing premise ripe with solid narratives that both youth and adults can relate too. A large chunk of the emotional narrative comes from Tris, played by Shailene Woodley, and her battle for self-forgiveness.
To be fair, these aren’t novel ideas with Harry Potter and Hunger Games still fresh on people’s minds. But that doesn’t diminish the entertainment value of Insurgent. It is well populated with action and plot development to keep viewers engaged. Physically a lot was asked of Woodley and she provides it with impressively choreographed fight scenes at both a lunch table and in a speeding train car.
The charismatic cast is brimming with talent. Leads Woodley and Theo James don’t allow the potential young adult fiction pitfalls of clichés and melodrama affect the proceedings. The supporting roles by newcomers Daniel Dae Kim and Naomi Watts as leaders of their respective groups inside the city provide a necessary credibility. However, it is Miles Teller who steals the show by stealing all the scenes he graces us with. He allows enough of a glimpse into his hidden vulnerability to really like him despite his malicious attempts at self-preservation.
Often times in fantasy movies like these the world building required for the audience to truly become invested in its well-being can fall short. The audience cannot properly grasp the magnitude because the set design feels too enclosed and claustrophobic. Insurgent carries no such problem, building a world so vast yet so intimate to connect us, the viewer, with the difficulties of this broken society.
Some may complain that the movie’s premise doesn’t utilize the opportunity to make a grand social commentary about society. Insurgent is not an artsy film, nor does it aim to be. It accomplishes what it intends to be, an entertaining upgrade on the previous film while setting the scene for a dramatic and explosive third movie. So when students are trying to decide what to watch for free movie night, Insurgent will provide excitement one hopes to gain at a movie theater.
