It does provide a few high-tech flourishes.” Of the cast, “Winslet and Watts, though never more gorgeous or glowering, mostly just strike attitudes, as if referencing Madonna’s old ‘Vogue’ video. The movie has an ordinary middle-chapter scenario, and less The Empire Strikes Back than Attack of the Clones. … with its repeat itinerary, Insurgent is less a sequel than a remake. The picture comes up short in both categories: it’s wandering, not urgent, while indicating that all-Shailene-all-the-time can be too much of a pretty good thing. Time’s Richard Corliss explains, “ Insurgent has two hurdles to scale: building on the promise of the first film and permanently anointing Woodley as the industry’s ferocious deadpan goddess. Read More ‘Insurgent’: Veronica Roth on Tris Holding Guns, That Mystery Box and Major Book-Movie Changes … Playing Peter “with a wise-ass swagger, Teller injects the glum doings with jolts of sarcastic energy.” The rest of the performers bring as much dimension as they can to single-note characters, among them Naomi Watts. Even so, Woodley is convincingly vulnerable and tough, and James makes Four’s stoic strength persuasive. Still, “it’s in the simulation episodes that Schwentke and cinematographer Florian Ballhaus, whose work is supple throughout, pull out the VFX big guns, creating extraordinary hallucinatory visuals,” and “ Alec Hammond’s rich production design bringing the various factions to vivid life.” And though “Schwentke somewhat understandably has a weakness for closeups of Woodley (those eyes! those lashes!), a distracting preponderance of tight shots of Tris welling up as she mulls her fate does nothing to heighten the emotional impact of her situation. There are also tone-deaf moments like the use of the already somewhat dated word ‘mankind’ in voiceover narration, particularly jarring in a femme-centric story set in the future.” … Streamlining Roth’s 500-plus-page book, three credited screenwriters - Brian Duffield, Akiva Goldsman and Mark Bomback - have reduced the number of characters and incidents while crafting dialogue that tends toward the thuddingly obvious. That’s not enough, though, to counterbalance the often oppressive self-seriousness or to plaster over the holes in the premise. The Hollywood Reporter’s Sheri Linden says it is “more cohesive and involving” since the world has already been set up by the original film. Schwentke “brings a flair for taut and flavorful action, there’s no question that the feature is a leaner, meaner affair than its predecessor.