Okay, after seeing The Purge I didn't know whether or not to just rant about it, but once I thought about it I decided I should at least put my two cents in.
The Purge takes place in 2022, when the economy is flourishing and unemployment is at an all-time low because of this twelve hour period one night a year known as "The Purge", when most crime, including murder, is legal, and the only rules are that some weapons may not be used and politicians cannot be touched.
There are a few problems I have with this movie:
1. The premise itself was very interesting and original. They could have really expanded upon the story instead of focusing on one family and making it....a typical home invasion movie. We've seen that in movies before, it's disappointing that they choose to do the most cliched, overdone plot instead of actually making the "murder is legal" premise a big part of the story. But really,it just becomes a minor convenience, which is annoying.
2. That being said with the cliched plot, there's also the issue of a few plot holes. This movie takes place in the future, and they give you a brief little couple of quotes about the Purge, but they never explain it. They talk about the "New Founding Fathers" repeatedly, but who the heck are they? What do they bring to the story? Give us something, at least. And there's also a lack of background for most of the people in this movie, and makes it hard to see their motivations. Which brings us to:
3. Characters. They really just come out of nowhere and expect us to sympathize with them. And most of their actions makes you go, "What the....?" Like, for example, the boyfriend of the oldest girl wants to go talk to her dad so they can continue to see each other, but then he just pulls a gun out of nowhere and starts shooting at him! No real rhyme or reason to it, guess it was for the plot device. And so many of these characters go through personality changes to quickly to be real. Like, the neighbors suddenly go from being mildly irritated to downright evil at the flip of a switch. What, crime is legal for 12 hours and suddenly EVERYONE wants to be a murderer??? How realistic is that? Which is why it's also hard to take the evil characters seriously, because they look like they are enjoying themselves way too much. Are they honestly thinking, "I just love being so evil; ha ha ha!" And when the evil leader couldn't stop laughing while he was stating how he was going to kill the family, I lost it.
4. Dialogue. Really just the same four lines being repeated over and over in a somewhat different context. The script also sounds very hurried, which is weird because the movie wasn't even and hour and a half long. It's okay to slow down and add some detail; the movie won't eat you.
5. Political Messages. This is by far the biggest one. They are so blatantly obvious that you feel like you're being beaten over the head with a bat. I fully understand what they were trying to say, though others may interpret it differently, so YES, HOLLYWOOD, WE GET IT! Also, I felt that the movie was a little anti-feminine. I mean, the female characters are weak and dress ONLY in skirts, dresses, or tight-fitted pants. And when they are interacting with the men, they alternate between making out with them, playing around with them, or being comforted by them because they are SOOOO SCARED!!! And another overbearing message was the severe sense of being Anti-American. The characters state repeatedly that they must kill because of their "duty as Americans." Wow, you really think we're that stupid that we won't get what you're trying to say there? Go make another bad sequel, Hollywood.
Long story short, this movie was not scary at all and actually very funny. Was it even supposed to be funny? But overall, a lot more could have been done, and it's virtually nothing we haven't seen before. This movie is ridiculously hilarious. Somewhat well-acted, but otherwise just something you aren't going to remember after two days.
