The weakest of the Divergent movies to date, this third instalment finds Tris (Shailene Woodley, still the series’s strongest asset) venturing beyond the walled boundaries of Chicago, through the toxic deserts of the Fringe, and into the shiny arms of the Bureau of Genetic Welfare. Here, she encounters David (Jeff Daniels, smilingly sinister from the off) who delivers much expositional balderdash about the nature of the city’s Factions while wandering through overdesigned surroundings which appear to have fallen through a Tomorrowland-sized hole in the time-space continuum.
As is now obligatory, Veronica Roth’s source novel has been split into two movies (the second part, Ascendant, is due next year) meaning that this treads a lot of water, separating Tris and Four (Theo James), removing the agency of the former, leaving the latter to do the heroic lifting work. The result is plodding stuff which accentuates the silliness of the original’s teen-mag personality-trope set-up, a narrative device that becomes more boringly byzantine with each successive instalment. Only Miles Teller seems to be enjoying himself as the disruptively disreputable Peter, in whose snarky company I would have much rather remained throughout.
