Runtime: 86 long minutes
Directed by: James DeMonaco
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Lena Headley, Max Burkholder, Adelaide Kane, Edwin Hodge
From: Several entities which should have made a better movie than this
The opening of the movie stating that the United States has 1% unemployment and no crime in two years time... hilarious.
Last night there was an issue with my Internet for more than an hour so my streaming plans went out the window. Instead I went to one of the movies that was part of a Blumhouse horror DVD set purchased at a Big Lots mainly due to its very low price. All the bad things said about this since it released (or should it be “escaped”?) is the reason why it's taken me this long to see any of them. Regrettably, this was as lousy as advertised.
The fact that this squanders what should have been a great satirical premise is a crime. Of course it's silly that the concept of The Purge even exists; perhaps the idea of a totalitarian government taking over the United States is not so far-fetched anymore... but of course it's goofy that in only 8 years time this was a thing that happened and actually worked. As I heard someone proclaim when this was first released, imagine if this was made in the 80's and someone like Verhoeven or John Milius had written the script. That should have been a goldmine of great ideas & moments as it would savagely attack various figures or archetypes that probably needed skewering. Instead... we get a stupid home invasion movie that commits the biggest sin of all: it is boring as hell.
A rich family where the parents support The Purge and the two teen kids are more doubtful about it... why is it focused on just them instead of getting to see all the chaos of this insane premise? Even worse, this family is astoundingly asinine, making dumb decisions throughout. The parents are rich fools, the son is a major weirdo who lets in someone asking for help (which is a Black man; what happens to him is even more uncomfortable now than it was in 2013) and was so creepy he might as well have a 666 birthmark on his scalp. By process of elimination, the daughter Zoey was the least insufferable... at least she made some relatively reasonable decisions and her biggest sin was being moody because dad wouldn't allow her to date an older boy who's a tool.
The gang of “Purgers” that want to kill the Black man, they are all lame... there is no noteworthy moments of violence, a lot of it is in the dark and there's hardly even any scares or frights in this alleged “horror” picture. To reiterate, what a dumbass movie this is. Yet the general idea of the premise became popular enough where “the kids” like to dress up like Purgers for Halloween and I understand the sequels and TV series are all superior to this; heck, a few times in the past “The Purge” went viral due to hoaxes that 14 year old girls believed and freaked out about. I should at least check out Anarchy and discover why many thought at the time Frank Grillo should play The Punisher on that Netflix show I never saw a second of. Those had to be more creative and insightful than this flaccid waste of time.
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