The Purge: Election Year

I found the more intimate survival nature of The Purge: Anarchy more entertaining than this dark action flick about saving a senator who wants to put a stop to all the “fun”. Even though her MILF character is the best thing in the movie (Frank Grillo is becoming overused and the motley crew of African-Americans with average acting skills might be interesting only to African-American viewers). James DeMonaco is more experienced and does his job better than in the first installment. Election Year has the right momentum and a not completely predictable plot. (08/09/2016)

The ascending qualities of the series are topped off for the third time by a superior genre spectacle in which DeMonaco tightens the screws in every possible way, thus giving credit to an admittedly clichéd but meaningful plot that really puts a fire under the protagonists. He manages to play on several seemingly unrelated planes to artfully connect them, and above all, he treats the audience to a decent portion of detailed gore, wherein he has no issues shooting a woman in the face in full frame. Indeed, the genre's template and predictability remain, but the added value in the form of psychedelically bizarre scenes, uncompromising black trash and white power battles, along with the irrepressible Frank Grillo, takes it up a notch. In such a promisingly played game, I might cautiously for one more film. (07/06/2016)

I wasn't expecting it, but the third sequel managed to inject new blood and formal spark into one of the most interesting horror premises of recent years. This time it's full throttle from the start, the night streets filled with twisted violent souls really make the blood run cold at times and the story around the unwanted senator "on the chopping block" makes sense from the beginning. Plus there’s the nicely headstrong Grillo, the attractive Mitchell and a bunch of supporting good guys, whom we won't wish death on either. All minus points are due to the ending, which perhaps unnecessarily inflated the originally purely economic subtext of The Purge into a crazy religious fervour and bought so many clichés regarding the action itself that it completely ruined the atmosphere and some of the unpredictability. But still, even tanking into account the zero expectations, quite a pleasant surprise; for a moment I even considered a higher rating. 70% (08/30/2016)

The previous two Purges weren't great, but they were okay. The weaker writing was compensated by decent action, which made the films watchable. The third excursion to the ever more awesome United States was considerably worse. The filmmakers, under the influence of political correctness, put together a perfectly balanced cast, so the only ones who could still complain are the Asians. The action wasn’t very impressive this time, the monologues and dialogues were downright stupid, the characters’ actions made no sense, and I don't even know what made me give the film two stars. (07/03/2018)

I'm not sure if it will be good when The Purge becomes a truly extensive series, but so far I've been looking forward to each episode and I will be looking forward to a potential fourth installment, which, as it seems, will indeed happen. And maybe a TV series? This topic is very interesting, and when it's taken on by someone who aims for social critique, preferably still James DeMonaco, it will always be good. (10/12/2016)