Review of The Purge (2013) by Claymerritt — 06 Jun 2013

Let me preface this by saying my lord did this movie actually have an original, interesting story. When I saw the first preview for this I thought it had potential. Okay, got that out of the way, now, on to the point.

Saw the movie with moderate expectations, didn't think it would be overly great, and didn't think it would be terrible either. So, the movie starts, the annual Purge starts, okay, so good, so far. Pretty good opening. When the neighbor woman handed Lena Headey's character the cookies, I knew something was going to happen towards the end. Like I said, The Purge starts and so far so good. Then, like every movie with kids, they ruin everything. Not going to give any spoilers, but the movie, a good part of the movie was a search & destroy mission, then the final part of the movie went along with deciding what the right and wrong things were to do in the Purge and a final showdown and just when you think its about to end.....they SUCK you in for one last act of The Purge, it was predictable to a certain degree, and it wasn't really good. A let down and it felt very forced and stupid.

All in all, it wasn't horrible, but it didn't approach decent either, it was stupid. The acting was okay. I mean, Ethan Hawke is a very good, underrated actor, we all know that from his past work, but this wasn't his best role. The idea was original and fantastic, exciting really. However, the execution was poor, the story was badly written and if in the 12-hour window of the Purge, all crime is legal, why did they focus on just murder? I understand that was suppose to be the whole theme of it, but all crime is legal. Be realistic. Where's the rape, the bank robbing, the drugs, etc? The movie felt like one big run around and got very boring. Don't waste your time on this over-hyped crap.