Review of The Purge: Anarchy (2014) by Christopher C — 12 Jul 2015

I hate how these movies are Devil May Care when it comes to the before and after. No one is concerned, everyone walks as if its the best day ever. First one: wasn't Ethan Hawke supposed to have an impenetrable home, but has it broken into in five minutes.

Purge II: Essentially an R rated Twilight where guns are pulled on main cast and nothing happens... EVER!!! Hardly anyone dies. Sometimes implied mayhem is scarier than an onscreen bloodbath but I paid to see violence because I have no plans of ever hurting or killing anyone.

.. SO YOU DO IT!!! Cookie cutter characters reacting in ways that would never happen in a real life free-for-all, no holds barred, 12 hour assault on humanity. Purge films come off as if you can truly survive if you run Z patterns in the street and are non essential to the plot.

Firstly, remove the quirky "oh, its the Purge again" attitude and make people scared. Its the God damn Purge for Christ sake! Secondly, when you have a slow motion shot of shadowy, scary people in background, have them catch their target.

There is no justifiable reason why it should take an entire film to catch someone when you were watching them before The Purge began. Its too silly. It is a darkened Nickolodeon movie for adults. The Purge on the surface is a great "film" idea in theory due to its social implications on who is who in the world.

The Purge films have wasted to much time on bland characters with little to no thrills. As a franchise, which it clearly wants to be; (and actually works as) the Purge series needs to show the real faces of evil.

Have the banks go after debtors, debtors going after call center management etc. Truly there are more people upset than those in the ubran areas and REALLY RICH WHITE PEOPLE. These films have the ability to play on social constructs making you afraid that the associate at "big chain store #1" may be your worse nightmare or the blonde at the traffic light could ruin your day or the high school geek could unleash mayhem.

Remove the ridiculous rich white people hunting indoors for sport and make an assault on humanity. There were just to many plot holes in Purge II and the best performance from the lead Frank Grillo (who was FANTASTIC) came to late and the Purge was immediately over.

There was one scene where an individual allowed their emotions to drive them to a murderous outrage. This scene was exactly what I wanted to see but as soon as it started it was over. This scene showed that human reaction can have grave consequences and could eventually spiral out of control.

This is precisely what Purge should be focusing on; raw emotion, heightened awareness that leads to actions that cause equal or higher reactions. In the third installment the director needs to open his world to real mayhem.

Not just disgruntled kazikame types but real, everyday, hardworking Joe's and Jane's that you would typically pass in the street. I want to understand more about the government aspect and how the deconstruction of humanity began.

Lastly and most importantly I need there to be an unrest. A true scare. Panic. Sleeplessness. When those sirens go off it is time to fear the common man, not just a burly type with a blow torch fetish.