THE DIVERGENT SERIES: INSURGENT

Part of a trilogy from "The Divergent Series", this second part "Insurgent" starring the same leads Shailene Woodley, Theo James and others such as Jai Courtney, Maggie Q, Naomi Watts and Kate Winslet.

The movie continued off from the last movie where Tris, Four, Caleb and Peter escaped from the Erudite faction leader Jeanine's clutches and were hiding in the Amity faction until Eric came along in search of a divergent who could be a perfect match to open up a mystery box, from the city's founders, that contained the symbols of all factions. 

Peter betrayed the others who fortunately managed to kill Eric and sought refuge in the Factionless territory instead. Jai Courtney played the ruthless Eric so convincingly that I would really miss his absence. There, Four was unhappily reunited with his mother Evelyn who was then the leader of the Factionless, and revealed his true name Tobias. Evelyn tried to persuade Tobias to accept her proposal to get both Dauntless and Factionless to combine forces to fight against Erudite.

Eventually, Tris was caught by Jeanine and on her own accord, managed to open up the box to reveal the secret behind the walls. The combined factions also managed to defeat Erudite and Jeanine was taken as prisoner, where she was shot in the head by Evelyn before the movie ended.

I didn't like Shailene and I still don't, but overall I do think this second part is better than the first.

Jeanine and Peter tested many divergents to open up the mystery box

Tris cut her hair

Eric had madness written all over his eyes

Eric confronting leader of the Amity faction

Tobias (Four), Peter and Tris

TRANSCENDENCE

This is one of the rare movies starring Johnny Depp with his original looks without any dramatic makeup. I almost forgot how talented he could be and how he actually look like. The other actors include Morgan Freeman, Rebecca Hall, Cillian Murphy, Paul Bettany and Kate Mara.

A brilliant researcher in Artificial Intelligence Dr Will Caster was shot and poisoned by a radioactive laced bullet fired by AI-protesters. His wife Evelyn tried to save what was left of his consciousness by uploading it onto an AI program he was working on, despite objections from Max, their friend and fellow researcher, who feared the perils of an artificial intelligence borne out of a human consciousness. Evelyn managed to resurrect Will's consciousness onto the processors which housed the program, and it craved for more knowledge from the internet. After successfully connecting Will to the internet, she escaped with the now liberated Will, who existed everywhere in the digital form, and set up a nano-technology facility in a suburban area which soon grew and expanded into a mega-power plant.

With the nano-technology, the equipment within the plant appeared to restore life to all living things such as dying plants and to heal the aged, sick etc and made them more powerful, but in actual fact, Will's consciousness took over their bodies, controlled them to do his bidding and tried to build an AI army in an attempt to save the world. By then, the AI resistant force and the FBI etc banded together to send a special force team to take down Will, Evelyn and the plant.

Frankly, this is not the first time I have seen such nano-technology, which actually appeared in the G.I. Joe movies previously. Whether the nano-technology is a saviour or destroyer of mankind was open to interpretation at the end of the movie.

Dr Will, Evelyn and Max

Joseph, FBI agent Donald and Evelyn viewing Will's consciousness on screen

Bree, who started the resistant forces