Insurgent

Last night I was fortunate enough to get to the NYC premiere for the moving coming out this coming friday, Insurgent.   It's the second movie in the series, Divergent, by Veronica Roth, and it's based upon the second book.  Insurgent.   I have not yet read the books, though my wife and I thoroughly enjoyed the first movie, and I would say we enjoyed the second one as well.  Though, as with any second movie in a series, it has some bumps along the way.  The visuals and effects on the movie are stunning, and for that alone, I'd say its worth seeing in the theater on the big screen.  If you can't, then at least try to see it in High Def when you see it on the small screen, as I think the cinematography warrants it.   For me, I suspect that if you compare it to the novel, they had to make sacrifices in the story to get it to fit in the roughly two hour window they had to tell the tale.  At the after party, there were a few young girls who were going around getting actors and even Veronica to sign their copies of their book.  (OK author friends, yes, I think that's a goal to go on the list, get to be at your own NYC Premiere for a movie based on your own novel, right?)  I glanced at the novel and it was quite thick.  (And can I just say, all the actors at the after party seemed quite wonderful, taking pictures with fans, signing, etc.  Very approachable, etc.)  In any case, with just a quick glance, it seemed clear to me there's no way they covered all the intracsies of the book in that movie, and so I'm wondering what got cut short for time.  I think Peter Jackson has spoiled me, because now I always want the extended cut to watch on DVD to see what parts of the movie had to be left out so they could keep it in a reasonable amount of time.  I plan at some point to go back and start reading the books, to hopefully pick up on those missing bits.  Though I'm tempted to wait until after the final movie so I don't spoil myself for the ending.  That's a hard choice.  I tried to do that for Harry Potter and I couldn't last past movie/book three.  With a shorter series, maybe the will will be strong enough.

If you are a fan of YA Dystopias, I think you'll very much enjoy it.  If you're the average moviegoer, it's a good film, though if you haven't seen Divergent first, go see it before trying to hit up this one in the theaters.   I think if you aren't familiar already from reading the books or seeing the first film, you are going to have a hard time keeping up, and the first movie definitely shoulders a huge portion of the world building that isn't repeated in the movie.  (It might be in the book, I do not know.)