Following the events from INSURGENT, the Dauntless group is trying to pick up the pieces under the new regime.  Evelyn and Johanna have everything split and they’re struggling to takeover completely ever since Tris discovered that there is more to the world then just the relic of Chicago. She doesn’t agree with what’s happening so that’s when she grabs her closest friends and makes for the wall that is forbidden to cross.  While the group is traveling through the harsh environment, they come across some flying vehicles and people who are based at the remnants of O’Hare Airport.  These people are healthy and explain to Tris and company what happened to the world.

ALLEGIANT is directed by Robert Schwentke who is the same director as the previous installment in the series, INSURGENT.  This movie does well continuing the story but it doesn’t have the same excitement as the first two films.  There are little spots of action and, to be fair, they introduced a huge part of the universe but they didn’t come off as the threat that I think they were shooting for them to be.  Shailene Woodley is still the character she has been but you can see the hope she has for this new world that she has encountered.  My favorite performance is, hands down, Jeff Daniels.  In this role as Davis, he has this slick charisma that everyone takes as the gospel.  It reminded me of his character in THE NEWSROOM but the evil version.

With all that being said, I did enjoy the film.  There are usually movies within a trilogies/series that transition from one direction to another or are heavy on the expository moments.

Cast
Shailene Woodley – Beatrice “Tris” Prior
Theo James – Tobias “Four” Eaton
Jeff Daniels – David
Miles Teller – Peter Hayes
Ansel Elgort – Caleb Prior
Zoë Kravitz – Christina
Maggie Q – Tori Wu
Naomi Watts – Evelyn Johnson-Eaton
Octavia Spencer – Johanna Reyes
Bill Skarsgård – Matthew

The video is a 1080p AVC presentation.

The transfer of this Blu-ray is incredible.  The details are sharp and look excellent in the close-ups but also in the wider scenes.  When the beginning of the movie pans over the ruins of Chicago, the broken buildings and small rebuilt areas are very clear.  The skin tones are natural and perfectly reproduced.  The coloring of the world when the group enters the wasteland has a lot of rusty hues and oranges against a reddish sky.  It looks like the Monet skies in VANILLA SKY with that painted look.  As far as the contrasting, the lines are clearly separated with heavy blacks.  There are a few darker scenes that have a few issues where those lines get lost in dark clothing against an even darker background.  All in all, another win for Lionsgate and their authoring techniques.

The audio mixes are an English Dolby Atmos and an English Dolby TrueHD 7.1.

The Atmos mix is superb.  The audio has depth and smooth movement around the home theater.  There is a great ambient sound presence with something always there from the rides in the aircraft, rifles being shot in the distance, and the low hum of the elevators moving around the airport.  The bass is rich and really hits where it needs to.  This is an excellent mix and the fallback Dolby TrueHD 7.1 track sounds excellent as well.

-Audio Commentary with Producers Douglas Wick and Lucy Fisher

-Allegiant: Book to Film:  This is the filmmakers discussing the choice to tell the story from the book in to two movies.

-Battle in the Bullfrog: This clip is of one of the settings in the movie.

-Finding the Future: Effects and Technology: This look at the crews producing both practical & CG FX and scenes for the film.

-Characters in Conflict: This clip goes over some of the roles and motivations for characters in the movie.

-The Next Chapter – Cast and Characters: This is interviews with the cast and crew.

-Building the Bureau: This is a look at building the airport from the existing structure and adding the futuristic twist.

Disc Details
2-disc set w/ 1 Blu-ray and 1 DVD
UltraViolet Digital Copy
iTunes Digital Copy

Running Time
120 mins

Edition Ratings
Rated PG-13

Region Coding
Region A

Video Resolution
1080p AVC MPEG-4
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1

Audio Mixes
English Dolby Atmos
English Dolby TrueHD 7.1
English Dolby Digital 2.0
Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1

Subtitles
English
English SDH
Spanish

ALLIGIANT may not be as action packed as the previous films but I do think it holds its own.  They needed this film to be able to expand the world and the characters you know already.  The Blu-ray has both a beautiful video transfer and a strong audio mix.  Even though the list of extras is extensive, there are some redundancies in the info.  As a whole though, this is a great release and as long as you have been following the series, this is an easy recommend to buy.

Order your copy from Amazon