The visually pleasing third act saves this movie from oblivion, as it progresses to a surprisingly fulfilling ending.

| Mar 7, 2017

In all, Insurgent may work as a deafening, frivolous diversion for viewers who can ignore the flimsiness of its universe, plot, and characters.

| Jan 21, 2016

People are sad, people are mad, people are bad, and people will say exactly how they feel any chance they get. It's like a Bond villain crafted specifically to destroy whatever mystery still existed around the inner angst of young adult stories.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 17, 2015

Insurgent's convenient scanners affirm its heroine to be 100% Divergent, the most out of everyone, and that's good enough for the story. But it doesn't have to be good enough for the audience.

Full Review | Nov 10, 2015

There are some thrilling scenes here and there, but mostly, Insurgent is an aggressively familiar experience.

| Original Score: C+ | Apr 17, 2015

A more efficient indifference generator than its predecessor.

| Mar 25, 2015

I appreciate the attempt to try to make this world -- an obliterated, totalitarian Chicago -- as watchable as possible. But there's too much to keep straight.

| Mar 23, 2015

There's little substance and little depth, but Woodley, with her preternatural poise, offers a worthy simulation of drama.

| Mar 23, 2015

Schwentke cranks up the action enough to keep us distracted, with well-oiled scenes of renegades jumping freight trains, and simulated cliffhangers involving flying fiery buildings offering several edge-of-your-seat moments.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 22, 2015

It's all a bit of an unengaging muddle, covered over with concrete grunge, clean white labs, and stagy special effects.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Mar 20, 2015

The dialogue is clunky, and other than Tris the characters are one-dimensional. Moreover, it's all so earnest.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Mar 20, 2015

The final Divergent book will be split into two movies, a future that is indeed a little dystopian. Much brighter, though, are the blossoming careers of Woodley and Teller.

| Mar 20, 2015

As a distillation of all that's most ordinary about contemporary young adult science fiction, it could hardly be bettered.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 20, 2015

It was always going to be hard to match the fire-power of The Hunger Games series, but the gap is now huge. If Mockingjay Part 1 resembles a playful, sharp-toothed canine, Insurgent is more like a slug.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 20, 2015

Insurgent is not a very good movie, but it's better than it needs to be.

| Mar 20, 2015

Insurgent stubbornly fails to surge.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 20, 2015

Most of the best stuff is saved for Insurgent's last half-hour, in which the movie goes "lysergic," as on an acid trip.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 20, 2015

Unlike Divergent, which required pages of premise-establishing exposition, Insurgent is more purely action-centric, as the hunters hunt and the hunted flee through the trees, hopping freight trains, trying to elude capture.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 20, 2015

At times it's just a weaponized vision of the highly cliquish tables at the high school cafeteria.

| Original Score: B- | Mar 19, 2015

This second installment, based on Veronica Roth's series of YA novels, feels cobbled together and less focused than 2014's Divergent, and lacks tension and excitement.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Mar 19, 2015