Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/499110
20 UCW APRIL 22-28, 2015 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM Holiday Inn Bordeaux 6:00 pm – 10:30 pm Grand Ballroom Come Dressed in Your Favorite Era! Use Real Bullets Next Time Insurgent (Rated PG-13) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS Quick recap for those who risked losing crucial plot det ails and nuance by sleeping through the first film: The stor y is set in post-apocaly ptic Chicago. The population is divided into five factions; Abnegation (self- less), Amit y (peaceful farmers), Erudite (brains), Candor (truth- ful) and Dauntless (warriors). There are also the Factionless (rejects), and the Divergent (rebels threatening the system with their non-conformit y). I think the greatest living pop cul- ture comment ator Jacob Clif ton summed it up best when he so astutely obser ved, "... they do have Tumblr in Divergent world, but it's entirely just people going 'Most people are only one thing , but I've always felt that I am MORE than one thing.'" W hile in some ways Insurgent (119 minutes) improved upon the cook- ie-cut ter dystopia of the first film, I'm still not in love. Maybe in par t because Tris is coming off as the less interesting t win sister of Katniss Everdeen (the Elizabeth to her Jessica, if I'm allowed a Sweet Valley High reference), and maybe because all movies not called Avengers: Age of Ultron only hold half my at tention right now. The film picks up about three days af ter Erudite faction leader Jeanine Mathews (Kate Winslet) at tempted genocide by turning most of the Dauntless faction into mindless kill-bots pointed at the Abnegation faction. Tris (Shailene Woodley) is angr y and milit ant af ter the death of a bunch of people I can't be bothered to look up. The audience knows she is angr y and milit ant because of her carefully layered and high- lighted shor t new hairdo. Also, because she wears a leather vest with a zipper and tight black pants. It's apocaly pse chic! During the three-day period bet ween films, she plugged into a Matrix- st yle program and downloaded a whole bunch of physical tics and fight- ing skills that I'm pret t y sure she didn't have before. I wish she had also downloaded a plot that made more sense, soldiers that actually hit their t argets and closure over whether that one lit tle lisping , golden-haired angel eventually got shot in the head by the evil stereot y pe or not, but you don't get ever y thing you want in this life. Tris, that one Erudite kid from the first film (Ansel Elgor t), her 30-year-old boyfriend (Theo James), and the guy they had to force into helping them (Miles Teller) are hiding out in the farming communit y of Amit y (please let there be a Great W hite swimming nearby, oh-please- oh-please) under the nominal protection of Johanna (Oct avia Spencer). Approximately all the soldiers stop by for tea and crumpets, and also to be jerks for no real reason. The especially sociopathic soldier ( Jai Cour tney) from the first film and his alarmingly large face find the hideaways in their hiding spot, the easily visible lof t with a plethora of windows, through which they escape. W hy they even needed the Judas to shout "They 're up here!" I have no idea? Af ter all, they were making a ton a noise and kept looking over the railing to see if the hundreds of soldiers were going to all shut their eyes at the same time. Teenagers on foot naturally run faster than well-rested, well- equipped soldiers who also have ver y speedy t anks and guns. In fact, our heroes are running so fast they can outrun bullets fired by presum- ably exper t marksmen. And that is exactly the kind of plot convenience that I find so objectionable in this par ticular series. Over time, the film degenerates into a bat tle of wits bet ween Tris and Jeanine. And in this bat tle, neither side is armed. Now Showing at Patriot 14 + IMA X . HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@ upandcomingweekly.com. 910.484.6200.