The Divergent Series: Allegiant Review - 11 Reasons It Might Be 2016's Worst Film

By Jack Pooley /

6. It Takes Itself Way Too Seriously

This is a significant problem with the vast majority of fantasy and YA novel adaptations, that they're so busy creating a world and establishing a near-funereal tone that they forget to actually have any fun. The Hunger Games is bad enough, but at least that franchise was critically acclaimed, whereas Divergent is unfortunately both achingly self-serious and actually terrible to boot. The drama isn't at all believable and so the dead-seriousness just makes it, rather ironically, unintentionally funny: it must've taken the cast numerous takes to get through some of these scenes without cracking up, because it is so invested in Serious Drama and Big Themes but has nothing of substance or interest below the surface. And don't dare begin to suggest that Miles Teller's atrocious comic relief character counts as "fun"...