Reel-View Ratings: The Bigger The Beard, The Better The Movie

Metro-031816-Ratings-DivergentAllegiantnotamusedTHE DIVERGENT SERIES: ALLEGIANT

The latest and definitely-not-greatest installment of The Divergent Series discards the societal personality segregation that heroine Tris (Shailene Woodley) fought against and replaces it with large-scale human eugenics. As you might expect, the plot struggles to find any kind of coherence in the directional shift, as does the cast, who mostly phone it in with their usual mix of indifference and ham. Things are glossy and beautiful, sure, but even the CG effects look half-hearted with only occasional moments of aplomb. It was probably a mistake for Allegiant to split itself into two parts — Ascendant finishes things next year — because after this mess, who wants to sit through another one Opens March 18 in wide release

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HELLO, MY NAME IS DORIS

A 60-year-old accountant gets an extra spring in her step when she falls in love with her handsome, considerably younger coworker. Doris (Sally Field) is a charming amalgamation of old lady tropes — hoarder, nosy, accidentally hip, easy-going — but director Michael Showalter (Wet Hot American Summer) isn’t quite sure whether he wants Doris to be a friendly grandma-type finding her groove again or a creepy stalker in the making, so he kind of varies between those two extremes with limited success. (He does utilize some of his trademark absurdity in a few dream sequences that unfortunately don’t match the film at all.) Luckily, Field buoys the movie up on her grounded performance, while her supporting cast adds to the overall whimsy. Opens March 18 at Kahala Theatre

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THE BRONZE

A small-town gymnast, Hope Ann Gregory (Melissa Rauch) wins the bronze medal at the 2004 Olympics and proceeds to spend the next decade mooching off the little glory she has won, collecting freebies, living at home, drinking, smoking pot and still wearing her old training sweats — another addition to the era of the unlikable female protagonist. Too bad The Bronze is so bad. Hope is mean and belittling to the point of annoyance to everyone around her (and they don’t get any good lines to defend themselves with), the plot is dull, the themes are muddled, the jokes fall flat more than they hit — the movie’s one saving grace is a ludicrously athletic sex scene. (Just find it on YouTube.) Opens March 18 at Kahala Theatre