“This is civilization’s last hope to stand against the one true enemy, the divergent.” Jeanine.,

Eric (Jai Courtney) and his platoon discover an artifact while searching through Abnegation wreckage and take the mysterious box to Jeanine (Kate Winslet), the Erudite leader. Jeanine announces that the box contains data from the city’s founding fathers and it will reveal an end to the Divergence problem. The real sticky problem, however, is that the box can only be opened by a true Divergent, and so the hunt begins.

As revealed in Divergent, the first movie in the trilogy, Tris is a divergent. Talk about your “inner demons”, as the movie opens we find her struggling with so many of the faction qualities that are within her; grief and forgiveness, identity and loyalty, politics, intelligence, guilt and love. Her nightmares keep her awake at night as she also struggles with an internal secret.

Tris (Shailene Woodley), Four (Theo James), Caleb (Ansel Elgort) and Peter (Miles Teller) are on the run from Jeanine. The group is in hiding and has been offered temporary sanctuary in Amity territory. Johanna (Octavia Spence), the leader of the Amity faction, understands and warns Tris that she needs to forgive herself or her obsession with killing Jeanine will consume her.

While hunting for the perfect Divergent for Jeanine, Eric and his henchmen arrive at the Amity village to test all of the citizens. Peter, being Peter turns traitor and gives up the location of the group. Tris, Four and Caleb take off on the run again. Boarding a train filled with the factionless, however, we learn the true identity of Four and the many secrets kept by Four, Tris and her parents (even Peter).

Great movie moments:

Several characters reprise their role in the sequel including Ashley Judd, even though her role is relegated to the Tris’ dream sequences. In addition Tony Goldwyn (Scandal TV series) makes a brief appearance as Tris’ father who was also killed in the first movie.

Miles Teller always brings the comedy. He didn’t have a lot of lines in this movie, but when he did, he delivered the lightness that was needed in what could have been a very dark movie.

Sorry parents, there is a love scene. I wasn’t sure if I should put this under pros or cons. I’m placing it under pros, however, because it was tastefully done and faded to black rather quickly.

Watching Jai Courtney running after Tris, Four and Caleb "terminator style" through the woods was almost worth the price of admission alone. Courtney is quickly earning his reputation as a great, action actor with such movies as A Good Day to Die Hard, Jack Reacher and, the soon to be released, Terminator Genisys.

Insurgent has finally helped me to understand some of the terminology used in the movie. For example, I finally understand the difference between the Divergent and the Factionless. The factionless truly belong to no faction, while the divergent contain the characteristics of all of the factions.

Not so great moments:

There was one scene where Eric and his crew were firing bullets through a train to where Tris, Four and Calub were running on the other side. Interestingly enough, while you could see the bullets coming through the train, none of the bullets managed to hit any of the factionless people hiding in the train. I’m not sure they thought this scene all the way through.

I give this movie 3 out of 5 stars.

Rating: PG-13 (Quite a bit of violence, some suggestive scenes, a word or two here and there.
Run time: 119 minutes
Director: Robert Schwentke

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I paid for this movie with my own funds. No compensation has been given for my review of this movie.