Allegiant (2016)

(On Cable TV, January 2017) As I write this, it looks as if the Divergent series will never be completed on the big screen: Box-office results for the series (and Allegiant itself) were so bad given the end of the teenage-dystopia craze that plans are now to do the follow-up as a TV movie and/or TV series. For my reaction to this, imagine a tap dance on a grave: Hunger Games aside, the teen-dystopia crash could be seen well in advance by the generic nature of the copycats involved. Allegiant (which was consciously split from its ending in order to make two movies as bigger profits—funny how that didn’t turn out as expected) is an exemplary part of the trend in that it’s utterly forgettable. It blathers on and you don’t even need to pay attention to figure out the various familiar betrayals unfolding on-screen. It gets worse if you do pay attention, given that you can’t assume that the plot-holes dumb twists and unexplainable motivations have been addressed at some point. Shailene Woodley is reportedly dissatisfied that the series is going to TV and the only possible answer to that is along the lines of “boohoo, what did you expect?” She doesn’t even manage to get out of Allegiant with her dignity intact: only Miles Teller does that with a sarcastic character who seems to be as embarrassed as his actor to be stuck in there. No, there won’t be any tears shed about the Divergent series going to TV. I’ll even argue that it should have remained confined to YA books, and then quickly forgotten.