The Divergent Series: Allegiant

As a big fan of the "Divergent" series of films, it comes as a disappointment to say that the third installment of the four-film series harkens back to the third "Hunger Games" film: It pales in comparison to the others.

The biggest problem with "The Divergent Series: Allegiant" is not only that it feels like a new story with a new villain, but also the script by Noah Oppenheim ("The Maze Runner") and Adam Cooper & Bill Collage ("Exodus: Gods and Kings") is not only too expository, but the dialogue is repetitively cheesy, unoriginal, and obvious. Quite frequently, you can predict what the next line will be if you've seen any sort of overwrought drama of the last twenty years.

Because of this, the entire movie feels silly, whereas the two films leading up to it felt rich and emotionally satisfying. This time, everything feels clearly fake, which takes any realism away and makes the audience lose the ability to care.

In this installment, Tris (Shailene Woodley) has already become a hero for a torn-apart Chicago where the factions that have been institutionalized for so many years have fallen away. Proving herself to be a true "Divergent" (meaning she is basically a real person with a variety of traits), she recently opened a mysterious box that revealed Chicago was all just an experiment and there was an entire world outside the wall they were told kept them safe. She and her new beau Four gather up their friends and head to the wall, but Four's mother Evelyn (Naomi Watts) isn't having it. She wants to keep the factions in Chicago. But now that the city knows they were being held there as an experiment, they start to rebel. Led by Amity spokesperson Johanna (Octavia Spencer), a new group has formed called "Allegiant," and they band together to fight Evelyn's Factionless goons so they can find out what lies outside the wall.

Meanwhile, Tris, Four, Christina (Zoe Kravitz), Tris' brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort), Tori (Maggie Q) and the hated Peter (Miles Teller) travel over the wall and head to a new city led by a man named David (Jeff Daniels). He states that these Divergents have been watched since birth and they are there to bring a new life to those living in the outside world - a world torn apart by a previous war. But all is not right in this new world (duh) and the Divergents will have to discover the secret of this newfound Utopia and fight to keep their humanity together.

What has been great about the "Divergent" series is that Tris is a more interesting character than, say, Katniss from "The Hunger Games." Perhaps she was written differently in the books, but the "Hunger Games" films have a coldness to them that makes it hard to identify or care for our lead character. What Woodley has done so well in the first two installments of this series is really make us feel for what she is going through; the loss of her mother, the betrayal by her brother, and the guilt over a friend's death have been potent, and she plays them brilliantly. She easily allows the audience to empathize with her.

Unfortunately, in this latest installment, Tris is sort of led around and accepts things at face value when even her boyfriend is like, "Umm, wait a minute." For someone who is a true "pure" Divergent (the only one, in fact), she seems a little thick at times. Daniel's David is so clearly a liar and manipulator you can smell his betrayal from the moment he walks onscreen. This gives the film a cheesy quality that isn't helped by wooden dialogue ("I'm going in") and some bad special effects (a pod crash looks absolutely cartoonish).

The one thing the writers do right is to divide the last "Divergent" book into two logical halves, so much so that the story actually feels like it has ended. But alas, there is one more installment in the saga. Where this last part will go is anyone's guess, but let's hope it brings back the emotion and originality of the first two and doesn't continue to diverge from the strong destination it was originally headed in.