This movie sucks. Not the most graceful way to open a review I'll admit but seriously, this movie sucks. Set ten years in the future; once a year, every year for 12 hours all crime is legal in the US. Supposedly this lets people get all their violence and hate out of their system or maybe it's just all smoke and mirrors, a plan the government came up with to wipe out those at the bottom of the ladder, those too vulnerable to protect themselves. Isn't that an interesting idea? The movie seems to disagree, deciding it's worth a mention but not much exploring.
If there's a thriller cliche this movie follows it to the letter. I won't venture into spoiler territory but let's just leave it at if you die in this movie, you deserved it and no one cares. If you didn't die? You deserved it and everyone wishes you did. Even the kids. Especially the kids. Look kids in movies are hard to write sometimes, I get that but generally they can get away with just being annoying. I haven't actually screamed for a child's blood this much since Surf Ninjas. Nobody in this movie is likable, relatable or even acts much like a human might. Screw it, one spoiler, skip to the next paragraph if you don't want anything ruined. If you decide to make your protagonist make a last stand to protect someone (which is almost the entire point of the movie), maybe don't have said protagonist leave that someone alone, unarmed and tied to a chair (that he tied him to by the way) just so he can turn up at the end of the movie for a surprise rescue. That's the level of writing you can expect from the Purge.
Entering into non-spoiler territory. We have Ethan Hawke as Mr. Sandin a man who has gotten super rich selling home defense systems to protect people from the purge. His biggest sin is really just being boring suburban dad #6786786876 in these kinds of movies. Lena Headey as suburban milf. Adelaide Kane as the hyper developed teenage daughter Zoey (don't worry guys, the actress is actually 22 you're probably not going to hell). They make a big point about how her boyfriend is "so much older" than her. He's 18, did this girl hit puberty at 4 or something? Max Burkholder is the child genius character we haven't been sick of since Jurassic Park, the single reason everything that happens happens and really if he died it would be a successful purge. Again, I can't stress this enough, sure sometimes I'll find child characters annoying but I've never actively been upset every time they don't die. Then there's some homeless guy and a bunch of violent criminals who are all interchangeable and don't matter beyond being the movie's half arsed attempt at screaming "SOCIAL COMMENTARY" at us.
The plot doesn't fare much better. This movie has no surprises, nothing happens that you won't see coming a mile away. For a movie with a reasonably interesting premise it does nothing with it. Just trudges along hitting the cliches waiting to collect at the box office. Written and directed by James DeMonaco (don't worry, neither have I) this all just feels like a cheap attempt at being clever. While I like the idea of coming up with a single concept and then just seeing how it would affect people, just inserting an idea into every home invasion thriller ever made really saps the life out of it. These kinds of thrillers just don't work. You need red shirts to make these movies go. Not that I enjoy violence or anything it's just that when you have a small number of main characters, say a suburban, nuclear all American family the audience can pretty much sit back and rest assured that no one that really matters is going to die for at least an hour. Oh you can try and build tension all you want but we're not falling for it. In fact one of the "twists" was what I thought was happening from the beginning, the actual plot was slightly better until the shitty plot I'd predicted actually happened. The biggest surprise this movie threw at me was that at one stage I was giving it too much credit.
Honestly there's almost nothing about this movie that worked, even if they had left the camera on a flat surface I might have been a little easier on it but nope, they couldn't even get "point a camera at a thing" right. Just avoid this, it's got nothing on the original Home Alone anyway.
If there's a thriller cliche this movie follows it to the letter. I won't venture into spoiler territory but let's just leave it at if you die in this movie, you deserved it and no one cares. If you didn't die? You deserved it and everyone wishes you did. Even the kids. Especially the kids. Look kids in movies are hard to write sometimes, I get that but generally they can get away with just being annoying. I haven't actually screamed for a child's blood this much since Surf Ninjas. Nobody in this movie is likable, relatable or even acts much like a human might. Screw it, one spoiler, skip to the next paragraph if you don't want anything ruined. If you decide to make your protagonist make a last stand to protect someone (which is almost the entire point of the movie), maybe don't have said protagonist leave that someone alone, unarmed and tied to a chair (that he tied him to by the way) just so he can turn up at the end of the movie for a surprise rescue. That's the level of writing you can expect from the Purge.
Entering into non-spoiler territory. We have Ethan Hawke as Mr. Sandin a man who has gotten super rich selling home defense systems to protect people from the purge. His biggest sin is really just being boring suburban dad #6786786876 in these kinds of movies. Lena Headey as suburban milf. Adelaide Kane as the hyper developed teenage daughter Zoey (don't worry guys, the actress is actually 22 you're probably not going to hell). They make a big point about how her boyfriend is "so much older" than her. He's 18, did this girl hit puberty at 4 or something? Max Burkholder is the child genius character we haven't been sick of since Jurassic Park, the single reason everything that happens happens and really if he died it would be a successful purge. Again, I can't stress this enough, sure sometimes I'll find child characters annoying but I've never actively been upset every time they don't die. Then there's some homeless guy and a bunch of violent criminals who are all interchangeable and don't matter beyond being the movie's half arsed attempt at screaming "SOCIAL COMMENTARY" at us.
The plot doesn't fare much better. This movie has no surprises, nothing happens that you won't see coming a mile away. For a movie with a reasonably interesting premise it does nothing with it. Just trudges along hitting the cliches waiting to collect at the box office. Written and directed by James DeMonaco (don't worry, neither have I) this all just feels like a cheap attempt at being clever. While I like the idea of coming up with a single concept and then just seeing how it would affect people, just inserting an idea into every home invasion thriller ever made really saps the life out of it. These kinds of thrillers just don't work. You need red shirts to make these movies go. Not that I enjoy violence or anything it's just that when you have a small number of main characters, say a suburban, nuclear all American family the audience can pretty much sit back and rest assured that no one that really matters is going to die for at least an hour. Oh you can try and build tension all you want but we're not falling for it. In fact one of the "twists" was what I thought was happening from the beginning, the actual plot was slightly better until the shitty plot I'd predicted actually happened. The biggest surprise this movie threw at me was that at one stage I was giving it too much credit.
Honestly there's almost nothing about this movie that worked, even if they had left the camera on a flat surface I might have been a little easier on it but nope, they couldn't even get "point a camera at a thing" right. Just avoid this, it's got nothing on the original Home Alone anyway.
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