Book movie adaptations have been on the rise for as long as most can remember. These days it’s hard to find a popular book that doesn’t have an onscreen counterpart, especially where the dystopian genre is concerned.

This is why it was no surprise when the Divergent series began its Hollywood presence back in 2014 with the first book in the trilogy Divergent, followed the next year by Insurgent, and this year by Allegiant.

Allegiant had fairly low expectations for the true fans of the books after the last two books had rather lackluster movie performances featuring extreme plot deviations. The book’s reputation doesn’t help either; it’s the most universally hated book of the trilogy by fans after the shocking ending that many refuse to believe. Going into Allegiant, the bar was set pretty low and the movie managed to surprise.

The Insurgent movie caused many to wonder how Allegiant would continue because of the strong difference from the book. However, the new screenwriters must have actually opened the book prior to writing Allegiant because it fixed the main problems caused by their predecessors.

Beginning inside the wall of Chicago and leading to the outside, the movie managed to follow the plot of the book fairly well, with the changes not being too detrimental to the series ability to continue into part two.

Most final book-movie adaptations nowadays are being split into two parts. Some say this is to get as much money as possible from audiences, and while this may be true, it does often help to allow for the studio to include as much of the book as possible. This is what really helped Allegiant because they had enough time to devote to some of the build up required to do the series justice.

While this movie served mainly as a way to fix the last one’s mistakes and set up the final movie, it did include just enough action and suspense to keep the audience fully engaged throughout the entire two hour run time.

Although much credit is due to the plot, there is no way to ignore the less than perfect special effects. Some of the technical aspects of the movie were impressive, such as the futuristic technology and its ability to look not only real but possible.

However, there is no way to ignore the extremely obvious computer-generated imagery (CGI) and green screen that never seemed to go away. While the production was better than in the early days of both technologies, they were nowhere near what other movies have done. This is surprising considering that Insurgent had a 110 million dollar budget, which most likely increased due to the success of the franchise.

The first showing AMC had was at 7 p.m. on March 17, the day before the movie officially released, and the theater was full of avid book fans and a few disgruntled parents.

Out of ten people in the theater at this showing who had read the books, the lowest anyone gave it out of 5 was a 2 and the highest was a 4.5. Many said it was close and that they didn’t find too many problems, but not close enough to be completely pleased.

Out of ten people who hadn’t read the book however, the lowest was a 3.5 and the highest was a 5. These people were mainly surprised at how much they enjoyed it and seemed to be excited for part two.

Part two will not be titled Allegiant: Part Two. Instead, the studio has chosen to leave this movie as the book title, and part two will be called Ascendant. This one is set to come out in 2017 as it is currently only in pre-production.