Review of The Purge: Election Year (2016) by Charlie C — 08 Jul 2016

Another year, yet another Purge movie by James DeMonaco. Every American who goes on the Internet should know what The Purge is by now. If you haven't, Google it; educate yourself on the mythology of the most original movie franchise of the 2010s. I've seen neither of the first two Purge movies, and even I'm familiar with its premise.

Election Year takes place 20 years after Anarchy. It focuses on an anti-Purge U.S. Senator Charlie Roan, who is campaigning in the upcoming presidential election and must evade mercs hired by the NFFA to assassinate her during the latest annual Purge. Lots of excessively violent action, overacting, cheesy dialogue, and shallow attempts at political commentary ensue.

To everyone who'd be in for a solid 2-hour hardcore action thrill ride, this movie is definitely up your alley. It provides an abundance of intense action and gore & guts galore, all cranked up to 13. And I'm not going to lie-I did have fun in several scenes, and there were a few moments that had some sense of real tension. The scenes with Charlie and her bodyguard were always the parts where I was invested in the most. Just don't get too nitpicky over how impractical it gets at times.

However, be advised: The Purge 3 is RIDICULOUSLY CHEESY, and I mean in that "WTF" kind of way, for better or worse. Okay, I'll admit that on Purge Night, American culture does take a 1980-degree spiral into public social insanity, so it'd make sense that there'd be masked psychopathic killers being as maniacal as possible. DeMonaco's melodramatic writing and the overacting are practical and necessary in areas such as the masked psychos in the city, those Neo-Nazi thugs who felt like copy-paste cutouts from 80s & 90s action movies, the NFFA cult (especially the minister's fiery speech), and the violent action scenes-sometimes, the cheese even adds a unique flavor to this film, even when it tries too hard. While the latter half of this movie does execute its cheese mostly well, there are some other scenes, namely in the first act preceding the Purge and early into it, where the cheese isn't exactly called for. The best example of this is the "I WANT MY CANDYBAR!!!!" scene, which I bet will become a huge Internet meme in the months to come. You have to see it to believe it-I laughed so hard in the theater at how over-the-top that scene was with its writing and execution. What I'm saying is that James DeMonaco does know how to write cheesy lines and direct actors to deliver cheesy dialogue, but he also doesn't seem to get when it's not appropriate and when he should just stick to the realistic.

World-building: Election Year most likely assumes you've seen the first two movies. I was able to pick up the pieces just fine. I'm not sure if other people can, though. Like I said earlier, Google before you watch.

And lastly, if you're expecting some smart social commentary, your expectations are too high. This movie has politics in it, but they're very thin and serve as just a backdrop for our main character, Charlie, to struggle to survive in James DeMonaco's fucked-up world. After watching the movie, I had deeper conversations with my friends regarding how a Purge would realistically play out in my hometown, how we would deal with it, and whether or not the United Nations would get involved in the next Purge movie, should there be another one.

Final verdict:

The Purge: Election Year is just okay. It is somewhat solid for what it is, though it definitely needed polishing in some areas. Still, I'd certainly choose to watch this over, say, Batman v Superman or Jurassic World.