INSURGENT (film)

INSURGENT. Robert Schwentke, dir. Brian Duffield, Akiva Goldsman, and script, from the novel by Veronica Roth (second in the Divergent trilogy: Divergent (2011), Insurgent (2012), and Allegiant (2013). Alec Hammond, production design. USA: Red Wagon Entertainment, Mandeville Films, Summit (prod.) / Lionsgate (US dist.), 2015. See IMDb for details on distribution.

Future mild dystopia (mild as dystopias go) set mostly in Chicago after an apparently world-wide catastrophe (or limited apocalypse). See this installment of the trilogy for the initial movement beyond the Wall surrounding the city — cf. and contrast Y. Zamyatin's We — and for images of bodily invasion by fiber-optic cables sending one into VR worlds of testing and usually threatening "simulations." Note also partially visible implants that can control the wearers unto the wearers' committing suicide, or just kill them by severing a major artery: cf. and contrast more direct ways to bleed out subordinates/slaves in DUNE; the explosive collars in Pohl and Williamson's Reefs of Space (1963) and Starchild (1965), and the films using the colar motif (DEADLOCK, TOTAL RECALL (1990); cf. and contrast also the larger and somewhat more insectoid implants in THE MATRIX.

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