Chris At The Pictures

If your only exposure to the Divergent series was through their marketing, it’d come as somewhat of a shock to find that it’s actually another dystopian young adult franchise, not an arthouse drama following a group of stranded teens attempting to get down from a tall building. Seriously, look at the one-sheet for Divergent:

Look a bit stuck, don’t they? As if they didn’t quite think the whole thing through. Things don’t improve in part two…

After a quick change of hairstyles (more aerodynamic, maybe?), the star of Insurgent and her cohort were a bit too keen to reach the bottom.

And now, we reach part three in the series: our central lovers (accompanied by some concerned friends) have slowed things down a bit, tackling the descent with a dubious minimum of safety equipment.  This careful approach defines Allegiant as a film: playing it safe.

The last instalment ended with the revelation that Chicago, home city of our heroine, Tris Prior (Shailene Woodley), is a massive scientific experiment controlled from without. We very distinctly saw the gates of the city opened, and the inhabitants tiptoeing out onto pastures new. Within the first thirty seconds of Allegiant, however, the gates are closed and the  masses make an awkward U-turn, trudging back to the squabbling and infighting they were apparently desperate to break away from.

Tris, Four (Theo James) and company are forced to climb their way to freedom over the wall. Once beyond, they encounter The Bureau, a scientific order that surveys Chicago in the pursuit of discovering genetic purity. Overseer David (Jeff Daniels, practically trolleyed onto set from his role in The Martian) informs Tris that her divergent nature singles her out as ‘pure’ (read: chosen one) amongst her ‘damaged’ peers, and that she has key role to play in rebuilding the damaged world.

For a brief period, and despite my extreme lack of interest in the two previous movies, I found the opening act oddly gripping: we get punchy action set pieces with some nicely experimental sci-fi tech on display. However, this intrigue only carries the film so far; right until the CGI drones and bubble capsules are deployed not as world-building but active plot staples brought into play because the characters simply aren’t involving enough. Woodley is ferried from scene to scene, reverting back to the motionless, stale-faced approach that so vehemently turned me off the first Divergent, and James (despite having a far more active part) glowers from under his eyebrows ad infinitum. At the very least, Miles Teller seems to be having fun as Peter (the Edmund Pevensie of the group), but I can’t imagine the role of 'unlovable buzzkill' is any great stretch.

Skewed in favour of image over insight as the first act may be, it’s at least preferable to later stages which completely lose desire for any kind of vitality: as the signposted twists and turns unfold with box-ticking predictability, screen-time is split between the orange wastelands surrounding The Bureau and the civil war in Chicago, of which very little is actually depicted (presumably most of the budget got spent on rendering the Mad Max-y backdrops). Both concurrent climaxes are insipidly bloodless.

Teenager Jay (Maika Monroe) is thrilled when she and boyfriend Hugh (Jake Weary) decide to ‘go all the way’. But soon after, Hugh explains to her that he has infected her with some invisible parasite, and before long Jay is visited by apparitions that stalk her every waking moment, visible only to her. And the only way out? To ‘pass it on’ to someone else.

Even before the film begins, the concept itself has introduced a variety of ideas ripe for exploitation; the teenage fear of ill-devised promiscuity and the unrelenting fear of seeing something no-one else can. Until something comes along that really works, you don’t fully realise just how bad the past year of horror cinema has been: an infection of found-footage schlock and demon possession have plagued us for far too long, and It Follows gives the genre a much-needed shock to the system.

Unlike the edge-of-your seat cattle-prod antics of jump-scare marathons, It Follows emanates a creeping sense of paranoia that settles into your gut and refuses to go away. Rather than searching empty sections of the screen for an upcoming scare, the people inhabiting the frame are all suspect: does that school student, old lady or laughing child just happen to be walking in this direction or are they the next attacker? The unbearable paranoia builds and builds in the background as the foreground is populated by believable characters, people that you get to know and – more importantly – fear for before the tension is finally released in a thrilling climax that will leave your breath caught in your throat.

Director David Robert Mitchell’s frame of reference is clear to see: the idyllic suburbs seems lifted right from the reels of Halloween, and the synth-heavy score calls to mind a Jeff Wayne concept album by way of John Carpenter. The wandering apparitions and deserted streets pay homage to Invasion of the Body-Snatchers whilst the scopophilic, salacious focus on young lovers is part Peeping Tom and part Under the Skin.

Though a great deal will try to convince you otherwise, the film is not a revolutionary masterpiece, but I’m willing to forgive occasional self-indulgence for the simple but joyous reason that it actually scared me. It Follows is a spine-tingling aura of paranoia wrapped in a tribute to the horror masters. David Robert Mitchell, we shall watch your career with great interest.

Having failed to keep her head down and having escaped the second round of the Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and her allies hunker down in the bowels of District 13, planning their revolution to topple the capitol, under the leadership of President Coin (Julianne Moore). With her home destroyed and fellow games-survivor Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) behind enemy lines, Katniss must decide whether or not to stand as the symbol of the revolution.

What gives Mockingjay Part 1 a slight edge over its predecessor is that the repetitive element of going back into the games is dropped and the story is able to move into a new direction, and it’s very impressive how the defiant spirit is alive and tangible now the oppressive aura of the games has lifted. With the exception of Philip Seymour Hoffman as Heavensbee (who spends the film slyly grinning from the side-lines as everything falls into place), everyone appears to be building towards something, ready to drop everything and give their life for the cause.

Jennifer Lawrence is spectacular, managing to still find new things to do with her role and proving to everyone why she remains the lauded face of the modern film star. The array of supporting cast all shine, notably Elizabeth Banks as Effie – who arguably is given greater room to develop than anyone else – and Sam Claflin as pretty-boy turned heartbroken rebel Finnick. Even the Josh Hutcherson problem of the previous films (that problem being that he couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag) is solved by the story itself not needing him very much.

Something I find admirable about this film in comparison to the previous movies is that – for what is essentially a teen action movie – it spends a majority of its time building characters, investing time in the unravelling of the plot and keeping the audience engrossed in the story, and even when the action sequences rear their head the CG and explosions are handled just as carefully and just as involving as the rest, even if the final set-piece is all over the shop.

Mockingjay is also a very important note in the Hunger Games series musically: James Newton Howard is finally given room to breathe outside the games arena, providing a powerful soundtrack that really deserves more attention than the ‘soundtrack’ currently topping the charts (basically a bunch of songs with the poster plastered over the album cover). There is also a central set piece involving a love song which really harkens back (albeit in a more populist form) to the punk-rock idea of music as a weapon of the revolution, to not only speak out against the oppressors but to belt out your dissatisfaction from the rooftops.

Willing to go to dark places, unafraid of injecting a little humour and unashamed when it comes to favouring emotions over effects, Mockingjay Part 1 may be laden with a few too many rousing speeches and a stumbling final act but it reaches furiously for the heights of its predecessor and falls but a degree short. If this is the opening salvo, fans and audiences alike have much to look forward to in the final chapter.

★★★★☆

Based on the novel by Lois Lowry, The Giver is set in what appears to be a perfect world. But while suffering and war have been banished, so too have choice, diversity and colour. While his friends are assigned to ordinary jobs once coming of age, Jonas (Brenton Thwaites) is selected to learn from an elderly man (Jeff Bridges) about the reality of pain and pleasure that once existed within the real world.

From the outset, the story feels openly derivative of many other texts aimed at teenagers: you have the communities/districts from The Hunger Games, the sorting ceremony from Harry Potter and the edge-of-insanity faction leader from Divergent. While the entire premise is intrinsically interesting, the initial intrigue is unfortunately strangled by the references and ideas that worked much better – or worse – in other films.

Thwaites (who I rather enjoyed in Oculus) feels very out of place at the start but slowly eases into an easily replicable role, while Jeff Bridges appears to have become caught in some form of suspended animation since working on Tron: Legacy and continues that enjoyably grumbly performance, albeit bereft of L.E.D. trench coat. Meryl Streep as the matriarch adds a certain degree of watchable madness but has clearly been taking staring lessons from Kate Winslet in Divergent.

Unfortunately, Streep’s character is where the enjoyable female roles end. Katy Holmes as Jonas’ mother is utterly wasted, Taylor Swift is brought in for about two minutes during a flashback before vanishing into thin air, while the supposed love interest (We Are What We Are’s Odeya Rush) is criminally under-developed. Whatever problems I may have had with Divergent, at least it had some decent female roles whereas here, they are marginalised to the point where you could remove half of them and no-one would notice.

Due to the nature of the world in which the film takes place, the colour palette begins in drab black and white, but as the real world is revealed to Jonas, colour begins to seep into the frame accompanied by great rainbow bursts which carry a certain visual charm. Annoyingly, these scenes are not only unimaginatively shot, but the character reactions to what should be the extraordinary undiscovered beauty of the real world are frustratingly muted and bland. The tone of the movie is all over the place, an irksomely saccharine Christmas scene offset horrifically by a sequence in which Jonas experiences what is essentially a ‘Nam flashback.

Carried almost entirely by an interesting premise and watchable leads, The Giver pays lip service to an array of philosophical problems but has neither the strength nor running time enough to fully play out the central idea to maximum potential; a young adult adaptation that would have much more room to grow if it could only refrain from ripping off its predecessors. It’s intriguing, but ultimately forgettable.

2.5 stars

Joking aside, it is astonishing just how much the faction system feels like a rip-off of Harry Potter (the sorting hat-like selection process) and The Hunger Games, the broken city of Chicago in which the film takes place resembling a slightly less flamboyant version of Panem, complete with futuristic security systems and a high-speed train connecting one end of the city to the other. Also, in a post-Hunger Games world, it’s hard to ignore the fact that Beatrice (later referred to as ‘Tris’ to assume her independence within a new faction) is no Katniss Everdeen. She has none of the intuition, determination or charisma of the role that Jennifer Lawrence now dominates and that is a problem. 

Woodley’s lead performance being the blank-faced shambles that it is prevents any kind of investment, and I spent most of the first half of the film wondering how a girl who was born into a faction that chastises vanity always manages to have perfect hair and make-up. Even the supporting cast cannot solve the problem: Theo James (who I will always remember as the guy who spent the last few minutes of The Inbetweeners Movie with poo on his upper lip) spends the entire film staring at everyone from under his eyebrows, and Kate Winslet as the shadowy head of the Erudite faction just looks bored all the way through. But the most problematic thing about the performances is that as a result, the relationship that begins to develop between Tris and Four (James) feels rushed, unbelievable, and forced.

The pacing is all over the place, the film dedicating around half an hour of its already stretched 139 minute run time to the first stage of Tris’ training, which means that the more important and hard-hitting elements towards the end are simultaneously rushed and make the film feel even more drawn-out. The set design too is all over the place, with seemingly no logical connection between locations, the atmosphere switching between dark caves lit by harsh red light and bright exterior rooftops despite the fact that the story is supposedly set within the confines of a single city. 

The soundtrack is an oddly dis-jointed mixture of musical score and songs, with composer Junkie XL sinking yet further in my estimation by apparently just re-using his score from 300: Rise of an Empire, which itself was just Hans Zimmer’s Man of Steel score minus the brass section. The songs themselves (minus M83’s rather uplifting ‘I Need You’) are just a depressing reminder that in this day and age, ‘From and Inspired By’ albums are being prized over actual film scores. 

Now I can’t deny when I left the screening there were some teenage members of the audience who appeared to have enjoyed themselves, and were in deep discussion surrounding the inevitable sequel that will be spawned from the next book in the trilogy, but I just left feeling rather empty. Divergent desperately wants to be the next Hunger Games but falls so short on everything besides visual flair and unobtrusive sound design that it doesn’t seem fit to scavenge the left-overs.

1.5 Stars