“I realized a couple week’s ago that this month’s Zipcar credit that I prepay for was gonna expire. Solution? IMAX movie! Duh. And it just so happened that Insurgent was playing this weekend at a time that was wonderfully convenient, especially considering I had plans to go to NYC to see Derek Hough! in the Rockettes show. With a reliable movie buddy in tow, we trekked thru the snow on that first day of spring (?!) to the IMAX. To be fair, it didn’t actually snow until the way back, but the threat was looming all day.
First off, I don’t know that this movie itself would have been worth IMAX-ing if it took any effort. It certainly wasn’t worth the 3D, and not just because mine was just slightly out of focus a lot of the time. I wish I’d remembered my 2D converter glasses which may have alleviated that problem. But there really wasn’t anything that I felt was heightened by the super special screen that would warrant going out of one’s way for it. That said, enjoyable movie plus Fuddrucker’s burgers beforehand plus my favorite theater anyways (ooooh Temperpedic seats with “”butt kicker”” speakers), totally a worthy cause for my Zipcar $.
I enjoyed Divergent enough last year that I quickly went out and read thru the whole series. Similar to my experience with Hunger Games, I enjoyed the first installment most, getting to learn about the status quo of the particular futuristic distopian society, and didn’t care as much about the rebellion to take it down. However, because I’d seen Divergent, I could take my time reading thru and savoring it. Insurgent was the one I couldn’t put down because I needed to know what was next. I read it so quickly that by the time I saw the movie, less than a year later, I couldn’t remember too much of what happened. It also didn’t help that the three books sorta blurred together for me.
What I enjoyed most about the film, was getting to see how the other factions lived: Candor and Amity. With the whole series the differentiations between factions was always what fascinated me, so it was exciting to see it come to life. I was sorta tepid on the characters by this point. The books sorta turned me off of Tris and Four by the end, so it was a little harder to take them seriously. Besides the new faces in big roles that were added (Octavia Spencer, Naomi Watts, Daniel Dae Kim) I most enjoyed Miles Teller’s bad boy turn as Peter. Oh and I still think Jai Courtney looks so much like Maksim Chermovskiy, it’s really distracting.
I mostly remembered the book as the movie played out, but there were definitely some things that felt unfamiliar (later confirmed for me as being additions to the film). Compared to the wealth of information and setting given in Divergent, Insurgent felt a little thin. It was fun, and I still love how dauntless it is (see what I did there) towards death and destruction, but the substance felt lacking. I’d say it’s maybe middle of trilogy syndrome, where it’s sole purpose is to bridge between the initial set up and the exciting conclusion, but I don’t find the conclusion too exciting. Still, very happy to see this franchise doing well. Let’s hear it for the strong young female protagonist in a futuristic dystopian society!
Insurgent – \m/ \m/ \m/ \n”