Division 19 Review

March 11, 2019 at 7:03pm
By Jason Stettner

I'm really not sure what the Division 19 was trying to exactly say. There were comments on jails for profits, mixing that with the idea of modern livestreaming events. It just doesn't really dive into that element a whole lot. There's certainly a ton of meandering nonsense, but nothing that really makes sense. The narrative jumps all over the place with random characters appearing for no reason as they essentially vanish.

There were points where masked people were parkouring around for no reason. That was something. I didn't even think the roof top parkour efforts were that wild. It was also weird with this event that took place where folks were like, we lost people in that break out effort! When they showed nothing that would suggest it. A large part of this was about a guy on the run, and it was cohesive for a short time prior to going completely off the rails.

So many elements don't make sense and it just sort of ended without anything that felt conclusive. It was honestly just nonsense narrative wise. So hard to follow, almost immediately. They should have focused on the whole jail elements as that could have been fascinating. The concept of having these subscription and paid for through microtransaction prisons seems entirely plausible.

I will say that Division 19 was actually realy well shot. It captured the essence of a destroyed society, with even some solid CGI elements. The city areas felt run down, and the integration of the screens into the world was generally fine. It felt realistic enough in that sense as this dystopian world. Moving past that however, it was a scrambled mess.

There were side characters, but I'm not sure they mattered and there wasn't a whole lot of action. The combative scenes were decent, very minimal however. It just seems like they didn't explore the core concept enough providing a flimsy series of events that came together to nothing. By the end I was just perplexed in regards to what was happening, or why. I believe they were trying to be clever, didn't deliver on that though.

The Conclusion

Division 19 is a mess of a movie that doesn't feel cohesive and just meanders through its plot. There's no definite goal, mostly just a guy staring off into the distance while looking displeased. Sometimes he walks places, other times he looks at screens. He hits all the usual runaway spots. Fighting with other random people; being chased, being rescued, being taken in, sleeping with a girl only for her to vanish?

I don't know, I'll try to forget this film. That being said, I will certainly compliment the visual efforts. Whether that was with how well it was shot, or the inclusion of visual effects. I think the acting was alright? Again, mostly a guy staring into the distance. I'll also never forget the strange out of place parkour efforts from what were the younger hacker generation? Blah, none of it made sense.

Division 19 Review at Home with Streamed Viewing
Screening Provided by October Coast Publicity

Rating Overall: 2.0