Review of The First Purge (2018) by Grantd243 — 05 Jul 2018

I very much like the Purge franchise on a conceptual level. I think that the idea of the Purge offers up a very interesting premise that could be turned into some great movies. Unfortunately, though, the Purge movies (outside of the first installment) have not been all that great. They've been decent flicks to watch if you're bored one afternoon or just want to eat some popcorn and watch people die, but that's about it. The story of this one follows the cast of characters on the night of the first Purge. Given this, I figured that the beginning of the movie would give us a somewhat detailed look at how the decision to have the Purge came about. We are kind of given that, I guess. We get an incredibly cringey interview at the beginning between a doctor and a potential Purge participator that basically gives us the origin of the name, and the rationale behind the decision to have it is explained as well. But after those little tidbits, the film dives straight into setting up the characters. I like a lot of the elements of The First Purge's story: how the New Founding Fathers' motivations factor into the experiment, how the people on the island initially act when the Purge starts, and how the Government gets involved later on. It did what a prequel should: add more to the movies that come after it in the timeline. However, this film tries to be so, so timely with its social commentary, and it gets to be a bit much at times. And that heavy handedness really brought down my enjoyment of the film more than I expected. Also, outside of the Government being a bit more involved this time around, The First Purge turns into just another Purge movie around the halfway point. There's some nice action, and some death, but otherwise it's nothing new. The concept here was good, the execution...not so much.

Characters: Dmitri (Y'lan Noel) is not only the best character in this film, but he's really the only character worth anything. He's the only one with any real depth, and it also helps that the actor portraying him has some real chops. All of the other main characters are completely two dimensional and are not particularly likable, either. I also have to say that I guess Blumhouse wanted to have as many crazy Purgers as possible in this film, but they are so over the top that they come off as people pretending to be crazy. One of the main "crazy" Purgers, Skeletor, is laughably bad. Without Dmitri, this cast would have been extremely weak. And, to top things off, Dmitri is a drug dealer...and he was the most likable character in the film despite not changing much by the end. That's something. Script: The writing for most of this film is horrendous. Extremely cheesy dialogue, but that's nothing new for the Purge franchise. Cinematography/Effects: Blumhouse is known for making decent looking movies on a super low budget, but I think that The First Purge may be their first film in a while that actually shows its low budget quite a bit. The sound effects are often recycled and sound like they came from a cheap sound pack, and some of the visual effects are downright terrible. If you see the film, watch for the blood effects in the scene that involves smoke grenades. It's not good. Cinematography wise, there's nothing special here, but it's decent. Overall: I was entertained by the action and most of the story of The First Purge, and I liked the character of Dmitri, but outside of those things this film is barely passable as a popcorn flick, even by my relatively low standards for Blumhouse movies.