You know, when someone asks why you are doing a stupid thing, “A leader has to make the tough calls and the hard decisions” is not actually a reason. Unless it truly is – that you genuinely followed some chain of thought like “Well, I could pay the electric bill, but bombing the utility’s office would be a tougher call so I should do that.” – which is even more terrifying than simply being an idiot. And let’s not even get into the utter bullshit of “keep you safe” or “trying to protect you”. What worries me is that this is affecting the way real people make choices in the real world. It all sounds awfully familiar.
As to the actual movie Allegiant, it’s the tire fire you’d expect. Most of the “acting” is handled by wardrobe changes. See the white pumps of bamboozled collaboration! The leads are meh, Miles Teller tries with what he’s given but you can’t pick a lock with a wet noodle, Zoë Kravitz is small and inoffensive, Maggie Q’s wig looks like it outweighs her, Kate Winslet is still glad she made them kill her off in the last one. You can see Naomi Watts’s growing horror at understanding what kind of film she’s in, which actually works for her character.
And apparently there’s another movie coming for the second half of the book? Because that is so what the world needs.