Sometimes I drive 5 miles over the speed limit, but if the purge were real, I’d totally bump that up to 10.
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“The Purge: Anarchy” is the second in what is sure to be a continuing horror franchise where the US government suspends all law for one night a year. The sequel is tied to the first only by being in the same conceptual universe, giving the filmmakers the freedom to make a new movie with new stories. But does that freedom result in a better product than last year’s silly and over the top offering? Yeah, I think it does.
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And that’s the beauty of a conceptual franchise right? If the concept is interesting, and by the way I think this one is, every new look into that universe has a chance to do its own thing. And I liked quite a bit about what this one did, especially compared to the first. First, I felt like this one was almost an action movie disguised as a horror flick. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s still grisly and gory. But at least it’s starting to move towards the idea that there is a decent enough concept here that if you tell a good story, you don’t have to have the carnage to keep people interested. Plus, and lets call this the best thing, there’s actually an emotionally resonant message here about the difference between morality and legality and a reminder that right and wrong don’t come from a governmental body, whether they are telling you you can’t do something, or even you can. Of course, where right and wrong do actually come from is a much longer conversation for another time, but suffice to say it aint from Uncle Sam, and I loved the way that especially the conclusion of this movie dealt with that idea.
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Still, at the end of the day The Purge is still a pretty mediocre film effort and it doesn’t quite have the technical chops to back up it’s intentions. There’s nothing truly inventive here in the way this is put together, and the actors all feel like they are just barely competent enough to keep us from rolling our eyes at the line readings. Plus I think the movie goes out of its way too much to show us how different people use The Purge, forcing our characters into silly situations so that we can see a new idea. But the worst thing is still that so much of the logic of this universe just doesn’t make sense when you really stop and think about it, the government’s reason for The Purge is ludicrous and self defeating, people’s obedience of the guidelines of the Purge seems far fetched and impossible to manage, If I disable someone’s protection before the purge so I can kill them during the purge does that mean I can still be charged with attempted murder for my actions outside the purge window? My point is, if you want to enjoy this film, you will probably need to institute your own 2 hour purge of the laws of logic to do so.
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At the end of the day, “The Purge: Anarchy” has some pretty interesting things to say about morality and government in a story that is more cohesive and engaging than the first. Still, the overall quality and faulty foundational logic leave it trying to survive with a B-
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