I speed watched Insurgent on YouTube this morning. I had seen the first film in the series and thought it wasn't that interesting of a story. Post-apocalypse dystopia with teens breaking the place apart. Why I'm watching this? I don't know. I am watching it at 1.5 - 2 times the normal video speed to get through it fast. It's the future and the walled city of Chicago is home to people who live by a caste system that really doesn't care for independent thinkers. We follow one young woman named Tris who leaves the family Amity faction to join the Dauntless faction. Their system is crumbling and the Erudite's take over in a coup. They kill off the Amity faction in the first movie. The second movie starts where the first ended. Tris and her pals are out of the city when the movie starts but the people in charge, headed by Kate Winslet, send soldiers to capture them. There's a bit of story revealed but mostly it's a series of punch ups, action scenes and CGI smashing and crashing. A good bit of the movie takes place in Tris's mind while she's hooked up to a magical machine that is supposed to open a secret box. The box reveals that they are a city walled off from the rest of the world. The people who did this wanted to run an experiment in genetic programing and the rest of the world is waiting to see what happens. The divergents, which is what Tris is the best of, are the goal of the program. Seems their ancestors have tampered with genes and created some problems. They hope the divergents will help fix the problem. It's all rather vague but I read the synopsis of the trilogy to get a bit of background. Poor Kate can't stand that she will lose her power and orders Tris killed and the box buried. Rebels pop in right then and save the day. Kate is executed and the people are happy to hear the message of civilization behind the wall. There's another movie coming, I read the trilogy killed off Tris and that isn't the sort of story element I care that much for. I can't recommend it to anyone but I'm sure others are more interested.
Parallels is a 2015 film about a group of people who travel unwillingly between parallel Earths in a special building. Ronan and Beatrix are brother and sister and Harry is their friend. The building jumps them to a post-apocalypse Earth where they meet Polly. She tells them that the building jumps every 36 hours and they just have to wait to get to the next Earth. Before it happens they get caught by some other people. Tinker, the electronics man of the group, shows them video of a man carrying a suitcase out of the building. It's a nuke and that man is Alex, father to Beatrix and Ronan. They escape and return to the building. Tinker gets caught in the building and travels with them. They don't know he's come with them. Beatrix and Harry travel to Harry's apartment and learn about this world. Harry is a bad lawyer and Alexis dead in this Earth. Tinker buys an electronic store's stock and puts together a device the break into the operating system of the building. All without knowing anything about it. Ronan and Polly travel to Alex's house but it's empty. They return to the building to get caught by Tinker. Beatrix and Harry rescue them, Alex shows up with some more backstory, kills Tinker, and the movie ends with them jumping to another world. A more interesting movie than Insurgent it's still not that great. It's made worse by not have a conclusion. It's a movie that premiered on Netflix streaming and is a possible TV pilot. If it didn't get more interesting as a series I would stop watching it. No mention of a possible series on a quick search of the internet. Oh well, I have more than enough TV to be getting on with. You can see it on YouTube, not sure for how long, but I wouldn't bother if I were you. Watch something better.
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