#19 THE DIVERGENT SERIES: ALLEGIANT

Starring: Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Jeff Daniels and Miles Teller. Written by Stephen Chbosky, Bill Collage, Adam Cooper and Noah Oppenheim. Directed By Brobert Schwentke. 120 minutes long. $110 million budget.

So, this is the next chapter in the 'We wish we were as good as the first two Hunger Games Movies' franchise starring Shailene 'I'm the next Jennifer Lawrence' and human tree impersonator, Theo James as the chemistry free, too-old for this, lovers Tris and Four.

The plot follows on from the exact end of the last film, which makes it imperative that you have watched the last film in the series, if not all of them, like I had to. 'Why?' you ask, well the answer lies in the fact this freakin' blog is called: Going to the Cinema so You Don't Have to. I take bullets for you people! So a little bit of thanks wouldn't go a miss once in a while. I mean, it's not like I don't have a family I could be spending this time with. Oh god, little Timmy. I missed his first violin recital. Oh well, he plays like shit anyway.

BUT I'm digressing, now that would be a good title for the next film in this utterly shit franchise, Dullvergence: Digression.

So, what's new in the world of Katniss and Pitta Kriss and Four. Seriously, 'Four', that's what his parents named him, apparently they were both keen golf fans. Well, the old baddies of Kate Winslet and Jai Courtney are dead, the old order of segregated communities organised into factions of Law, Farming, Workers and Parkour is at an end and the resistance lead by Eveyn (Naomi Watts) is in control. Gone are the days of government state-sponsored killings and segregation based on abilities replaced by a new society of state-sponsored killings and segregation based on abilities. And the doors to the ruin of Chicago are thrown open to be slammed shut five minutes into the new film.

Anyway Katniss and Pitta  Kriss and Four aren't going to take a little thing like a thousand foot wall stop them so they escape into the outside to find the truth about that MacGuffin thing in the last film.

They find another society seemingly run by Dumb and Dumber's Jeff Daniels and we're given a whole new set of rules for which Katniss and Pitta Kriss and Four can rebel against. After that it's just the usual, bloodless shooting, young people emoting, chaste kissing and a sieve's worth of plot holes. There's some guff about an amnesia gas and the genetic segregation of the new society they find themselves in and the path is set for, I think, one or is it two more of these turgid, dreary, gloomy and dull trudges through the depressing post-apocalyptic world of YA novels.

There's a reason this series is called Dullvergence, people! Don't waste your time, even if you have sat through that last three, this is just a dreary, bland, homogenized dirge.

4/10