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Insurgent | 2015 | PG-13 | - 3.6.5

In this sequel teens who have abandoned their assigned societal factions, along with one Divergent who can think for herself (Shailene Woodley), battle the powerful Erudite government. The teens flee from soldiers and seek answers as to why the only world they have ever known is crumbling and barricaded behind a wall. Also with Theo James, Miles Teller, Ansel Elgort, Kate Winslet, Octavia Spencer, Zoë Kravitz and Naomi Watts. Directed by Robert Schwentke & Neil Burger. [1:58]

SEX/NUDITY 3 - A young woman and a teen boy kiss passionately for several seconds as she sits in his lap on a narrow bed; she unzips her vest in close-up (we see her stomach) and he removes his shirt (we see his bare back) and they embrace and kiss ( sex is implied). A clothed teen girl sleeps in the arms of a clothed teen boy in bed.
 A young woman showers in a dark stall with her arms crossed against her chest and shoulders (we see her face, shoulders and arms in the frame). Teen girls and adult women wear a few low-cut tops with tight jeans or V-necked dresses that reveal some cleavage in several scenes. A few teen girls wear clingy crop-tops that bare cleavage and abdomen. A teen girl wears a sleeveless vest; we see a round tattoo on the back of her shoulder and a tattoo of small crows near her collarbone. A teen boy removes his shirt and we see wide stripes tattooed down his bare back.
 A young man leers at a young woman and she punches him in the face for looking her up and down and grunting a long, "Ahh" at her (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details).

VIOLENCE/GORE 6 - In three scenes, one man shoots another man between the eyes below the frame; we see the gun aimed at the forehead and the camera pans upward to hide the victim as we hear a loud shot each time and after each shot, the camera cuts to a long shot of each victim, lying on one side with the head hidden behind the body and no blood flow is seen. Two women stand with one behind the other at a window and both facing the camera; the second woman shoots the first woman in the back of the head (we hear the loud gun report and see a flare of light as the screen goes black and there's no blood). A soldier aims a handgun at the forehead of a 3-year-old girl, but a teen girl tackles him and they scuffle, the man tells the girl later that she will wish he had killed her as soldiers enter with drawn rifles and capture the would-be shooter forcing him to his knees; he taunts his captor, who aims a gun at his forehead as the camera pans away and we hear a loud shot off screen.
 Several teenagers confront three other teens in a train car and fistfights erupt with punching, kicking, choking and slamming of bodies onto walls and floors: a teen girl punches a young man for leering at her (we see a few scrapes on teen girls and teen boys), a teen boy pulls a knife and another boy takes it from him and stabs him multiple times below the frame while a young man holds a teen girl's head out the boxcar door, choking her (she gags) and trying to toss her out, but another young man pulls him away; during one fistfight the arm of a young man catches against a pole outside the boxcar as the train passes and the young man screams (it is implied that he lost his arm, but we do not see this). A dead teen girl lies covered on a gurney is accompanied by three teen boys and as one of the boys uncovers her face another boy rushes him and a fistfight ensues. A teen girl attached to cables fights against her own mirror image in virtual reality and we see a substantial amount of charging, punching, choking, kicking and body throws as glass shatters loudly until one impact causes the mirror image to dissolve into silver confetti.
 A teen girl convulses as she hangs by a dozen electric bales stuck into her back and a hologram of her vital signs flashes as she bleeds from the mouth and nose; a technician says that she is no longer viable (she's dead) and four men pull her from the cables and carry her away. We see a teen girl attached to cables, apparently dead, with blood flowing from her nose, mouth and ears. A teen girl receives several mind-body scans that involve simulations that are hallucinations provided by computer programming supplied through cables attached to the girl's back; we see screens in the air that show images of her brain and nervous system as the girl sees the ghost of her dead mother screaming among flames in a building with flaming windows as the building uproots itself and slowly flies through the air; the girl grabs cables, falls, runs across buildings as the flying building crashes into a skyscraper and chunks of concrete fall and fill the screen until she speaks with the ghost and the simulation ends. A teen girl sees a teen boy fighting among soldiers and he gives her a large pistol as she tells him he is a simulation and he dissolves into silver confetti.
 Inside a crumbled skyscraper, we hear a loud scream and see three women in a trance step in a line together toward the edge of a high cliff formed by a broken cement floor as they stare and chant that a Divergent girl must be turned over to a dictator; two of the women are pulled back after they walk off the edge of the cliff while the third woman falls to the floor with a loud thud and we see her dead body from above (no blood appears) and two other entranced women snap out of the trance.
 A teen girl has several nightmares in which she sees her mother telling her that the girl killed all members of a specific social caste; she sees a male friend lying on the ground, dead, with his face bloody and the hand of another teen girl covered in blood. In a hallucination or dream, a teen girl sees the bloody neck of her boyfriend as he lies unmoving, but she startles out of the trance and sees that he is OK.
 A teen girl enters a government building, followed by soldiers pointing rifles and a young man pulls a handgun and pushes her until a woman tells her to step onto a disk on the floor for body scanning; the girl slams the young man's face into a wall, leaving bloody stains on the wall as well as the young man's face and hands and the woman says, "It's OK. Go ahead and kill him if you want"; the girl points a handgun at her own temple, but does not fire, then steps onto the disk where electric cables descend from the ceiling, sparking and showing pointed needles that jam into her back and she shouts. A teen girl is connected to scanning cables and she shouts at a woman behind a glass wall, pulls loose and runs through shattering glass, unharmed; as the girl reaches the woman, the woman dissolves into silver confetti and the girl flies out a crumbling skyscraper, falls past skyscrapers that fill the screen with crumbling concrete and she hits the pavement, which breaks into pieces.
 Soldiers lower themselves by cables onto a rooftop and use rifles to shoot out windows with loud crashes, shattering glass and sounds of rifle shots; a teen girl and a teen boy run as opposing soldiers shoot at the attackers and we see several attackers fall, presumably dead (without blood flow). Soldiers with drawn rifles chase residents of a commune into a gathering place to scan them; two teen boys and a teen girl subdue three soldiers and take their rifles from them, escaping, and we see scuffling and fistfights, but no injuries. Three teen boys and a teen girl race through a wooded area to escape pursuing soldiers that have rifles and are shooting at them; one of the boys separates from the party and the rest hide at a farm where they argue and the girl announces that they need to kill a corrupt official. A young woman and two young men flee from soldiers and run across a railroad track as a train passes behind them. Soldiers chase a group of adults and children in a warehouse type dwelling, shooting them with a combination sleep-drug and tracking device (please see the Substance Use category for more details); the people fall to the floor, asleep, and we see a tiny ball bearing stuck on the skin at the neck or shoulder; one woman rolls down a staircase (she is unharmed and awake), and a little girl cries and runs off screen.
 A teen boy argues with a teen girl and says that she killed her parents; she attacks him with a dull dinner knife and they fistfight (no injuries are seen) until someone breaks them up and tells the teens to leave. Many teenagers jump off a freight train and enter a foundry where we see metalworkers making blades, handguns and rifles as we see sparks and hear whining machinery; in a back room, a woman conspires to build an army in order to defeat a dictator that enslaved the local population and they argue.
 A young man and a young woman are captured by soldiers in a standoff with rifles and guns pointed at one another simultaneously until the couple puts down their handguns, and submit to truth serum and a trial.
 A teen boy slams his fist on a table while arguing with his mother, he rises and stalks out of the scene. We see a teen boy shouting and slamming his hands against the glass door of a jail cell.
 We hear that government agents murdered a mother and father and their teen daughter feels responsible. We hear that soldiers killed a teen boy's mother, but that the death was fake and a ruse used to escape captivity endured from an extremely abusive husband (no details are given). We hear that a teen girl killed a male friend in self-defense, but cannot forgive herself; she states, "People get close to me and they die." A teen girl confronts a young woman about the death of a teen boy and they both become tearful. A teen girl says that she killed a male friend when he attempted to shoot her; she shot more quickly and survived.
 A woman shouts to her soldiers to kill a teen girl and her boyfriend, but they do not. A TV broadcast on the sides of armored trucks shows a woman stating that Divergents are destroying society and the government must destroy them. Throughout the film, a woman states that all Divergents must be killed. One Divergent repeats several times that a woman must be killed. A woman says that Divergents are dangerous, because they psychologically belong to too many factions (castes). A woman tells a teen girl that suicides will continue in order to control people and to rid the city of unwanted people.
 A woman holds a bloody pan with a ball bearing in it and she says the red tendrils attached to the metal wrap around nerves and kill the human if the ball is removed and we see a pan full of small ball bearings later as we hear that people found a way to defeat the devices. A woman wears a bandage on her hand and wrist throughout the film, holding the injured hand as if in pain. A young man injects something unknown into a young woman's back (please see the Substance Use category for more details).
 A nearly abandoned city is full of crumbling skyscrapers and bombed out buildings with debris and trash strewn everywhere on the sidewalks and streets while government soldiers, including teen men and teen women, carry large rifles as they patrol the inner city. We see kegs of wine or juice leaking from several bullet holes inside a rail car.

LANGUAGE 5 - At least 1 F-word, an utterance of "Four" sounds like an F-word, 2 scatological terms, 2 mild obscenities, name-calling (crazy, insane, dumb, fool, weird, stiff, fugitives, scary, boring, meathead, horror), stereotypical references to men, women, mothers, teenagers, power-hungry dictators, scientists, social engineers, soldiers, heroes, villains, farmers, pacifists, rebels, spies, cowards, bullies, people who are different, 7 pseudo-religious exclamations repeated (Go With Happiness, May The Truth Set You Free).

SUBSTANCE USE - A teen boy and a teen girl receive injections from large hypos of truth serum in the side of the neck and the girl flinches as the boy breathes heavily and answers question, and a young man injects a teen girl in the back with a paralytic. A farm dinner table features a few bottles of juice or wine but no one drinks, goblets of wine are seen on tables and one adult takes a sip from a glass as a dinner, and kegs of wine or juice are shown in a boxcar.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Social engineering, caste systems, violence against women, slavery, bullying, control, greed, independence, critical thinking, selflessness, family loyalty, teen emotional issues, future of mankind, murder, revenge, grief, loss, guilt, danger, determination, courage, honesty, freedom, forgiveness, suicide.

MESSAGE - The bullied in society are sometimes the most vital to the survival of humankind.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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