I am going to come out and say this right at the top, I am in favor of The Purge. Now before you tell me how wrong it is to back such a thing, just hear me out. I am not so much in favor of The Purge as much as a purge, I mean a purge of unwatchable movies. See I know what you are thinking, wish a statement like that in a review, it can not be a good sign for the movie in said review. While it is not all doom and gloom for “The Purge: Anarchy” which is not one of those unwatchable movies, It just served as the ignition for fire that was set on my idea to purge all bad movies.
Ok so maybe I don’t really want to purge bad movies; instead I just wanted to see how many times I could actually say the word purge in the beginning of this review (made it to eight). Now if you remember 2013’s “The Purge” you pretty much know what to expect with this film. For those who did not see it or had locked it away in some dark corner of your memory let me remind you of the basics. The New founding fathers have found a way to end all the bad things that haunt a country. They didn’t create new jobs or build new hospitals; no they set a day aside once a year for the public to commit any crime they want for six hours. In the first film we had a family who after trying to help someone gets dragged into the purge. That was ok for the first time, but since we can expect another seven of these films, they needed to make this one different.
This time different does equal better, as we follow Sergeant (Frank Grillo) as he sets out to serve a dish best served cold, but instead runs into two separate pairs of people in the wrong place. Not wanting to deviate from his mission, he offers to help to them to a safe location, then tries to get back to it. Now I know this sounds nice, but don’t worry they run into lots of purgees (is that a word?) who often end up on the wrong side of life when they meet Sergeant.
I could go on about what happens, but do I really need to? To sum it up some people die, while others live, the perfect synopsis of this movie. Written by James DeMonaco, who also wrote the first film, and who is also responsible for writing the film “Jack”, which I only bring up to give you something to think about if you are familiar with that film.
While the first movie was not something you would admit to watching, or would only to warn people to stay away from, the sequel is actually better. Now that is not saying a lot when the bar is so low, but still an improvement is an improvement. Having the main characters roam the street, as well as the unintentional humor, or intentional, were what made the difference. “The Purge: Anarchy” is also not a movie you will try to forget, you might even watch it again as it makes its cable run. With that said, this is not a good movie, but what it could be is one of those guilty pleasure movies like those bad reality TV shows. So if you want to be one of those people who get in early on something, go an check this one out, because you can see the writing on the wall, we will have a lot more purges for years to come.
Brian Taylor
