Review of The Purge (2013) by Tom K — 03 Aug 2014

The Purge fails to live up to its intriguing premise. Indeed, it suffers from a lack of everything that defines a good horror film : likable, relatable characters? Nope, we're supposed to root for a privileged, white, posh family that not only financially profits from the annual purge, but also features two of the dumbest, most annoying kids I've ever seen in a movie.

Scary/unsettling villains? Nope, all of the movie's villains are either completely goofy (the leader of the home invaders looked creepy enough in the trailers, but his dialogue is something straight out of a bad comic book and the actor doesn't have the required charisma to pull this role off), or annoyingly stupid.

Seriously, it's as if they gave the kids from any given Friday the 13th guns and masks. Thrills and suspense? Nope! The movie's pace is awfully slow - the first two thirds are pretty much just exposition scenes.

And once violence and danger finally find their way into the movie, none of it is thrilling : I didn't care about any of the characters, and even once Ethan Hawke - one of my favorite actors, by the way - goes Rambo on some killers, the resulting violence is bland and uninteresting, neither startling nor satisfying.

It's just, kinda there. It's no more interesting than a house plant or a lamp, it's part of the movie, without managing to take center stage. The movie's only redeeming qualities are some nice atmosphere and solid performances from Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey, who make the most of the limited script.

Honestly, I mostly wanted to see what was happening in the streets during the purge, because I didn't care about what was being shown to me - and that's probably the worst thing a movie can do.