Purge parties. Because why not.
Like every horror movie franchise that has ever existed, The Purge decided it’s time to explain it’s origins with a prequel — The First Purge.
Which, right off the bat, actually isn’t the worst idea. Generally, I’m not usually a huge fan of prequels (just look at Solo if you need to see why), but something like The Purge could actually benefit from some exposition — how, exactly, did our nation reach a place where we allow murder to be legal for one night?
That’s, obviously, a pretty heavy topic though, and there comes the problem — it’s pretty hard to make a movie dealing with those serious issues and yet, at the same time, cater to all the horror fans out there.
I have yet to see a Purge movie could actually pull that off and, guess what — The First Purge really doesn’t either.
Before everything went down with Frank Grillo, Ethan Hawke and whoever was in Election Year (I’ve tried my best to purge that movie from my mind, because I HATED Election Year), there was just Nya (Lex Scott Davis).
Nya lives on Staten Island and, like all of his neighbors, doesn’t really know how to feel about the idea of this purge experiment the government is trying to push on them.
On the one hand, it’s pretty messed up. That kind of goes without saying and really doesn’t need any further explanation beyond that.
On the other hand, the government is offering anyone who stays on the island for the night $5,000, and even more if they go out in the streets and partake in some the action.
Given that Staten Island is full of low-income people, that kind of money can go along way. If Nya and her brother Isaiah (Joivan Wade) both find a place to lay low for the night and then get the money, they’ll have enough money to move to a different state where they’ll never have to be a part of the purge again — because there’s no way this could catch on to the whole nation, right?!?!?!
If only it were that simple.
So, they reluctantly agree to stay and, at this point, you know the drill. There’s a bunch of creepy people running around with masks, a bunch of politically ambushing that’s supposed to lead to some kind of statement and a whole lot of lackluster writing.
Actually, the best part of the movie, I thought, revolved around a sub-plot with a character named Dmitri (Y’lan Noel).
Maybe it’s because I’m not all that invested in these Purge movies at this point, or maybe I’m just dumb, but it wasn’t until the start of the second half of the movie when I realized who Dmitri actually is in the context of this franchise. Given that Noel actually gives a really good performance to boot, he’s easily the main takeaway of The First Purge.
Actually, scratch that, there are two main takeaways. There was one question I had on my mind from the moment The First Purge started to the moment it ended — how the hell did they get Marisa Tomei to agree to be in this movie?
She plays some high up government official who, more or less, kind of came up with the idea for the purge in the first place. Tomei is quite literally acting circles around everyone in the film — especially those she shares the screen with — even though I kind of doubt she was all that invested in the material either. Her character isn’t particularly well written and her storyline goes nowhere, but it’s still Marisa Tomei getting to be a badass, which is always a good thing.
I’ll say this about The First Purge — for those who liked the first three movies and are looking for some straightforward purge action, you probably won’t be all that disappointed. Director Gerard McMurray actually has some new ideas to bring into the mix and this is, overall, a better movie than Election Year was.
The problem is the origin side of it, as The Purge movies are still really struggling to figure out what they’re trying to say.
McMurray approaches The First Purge looking to make a statement. That’s great because a concept like this could really lend itself to that kind of an idea. It’s also really interesting to see how these movies evolved — The Purge was about a rich white family living in the suburbs, while we’re now taking on things like the Black Lives Matter movement, modern day racism and political upheaval.
With a script like this though, that all winds up falling flat. Everything is so on-the-nose or poorly executed that any kind of statement the film might be trying to make gets lost in all the cringe-worthiness of it all.
On top of that, throw on the fact that these movies really can’t pick a tone, and we’ve got a real mess. Again, wanting to include a message is great, but let’s not kid ourselves either — people are coming to see the purge movies because they want to see some purge action. McMurray knows this and still includes it, but The First Purge is almost trying to have its cake and eat it too by saying ‘Purging is such a terrible thing, how could our nation come to this, now watch all these people in masks murder each other, isn’t that so cool?’
To his credit, McMurray is trying his hardest as a filmmaker to make The First Purge different in that regard and standout. Sometimes, it works. There’s a really cool trick he does with purger’s eyes in this movie that was actually pretty creepy.
Other times, it just feels like he’s trying way too hard. McMurray doesn’t have the same talent as someone like David Leitch, so when he tries to do a one-shot it’s all just a bunch of shaky cam and bad editing.
The First Purge isn’t an awful movie, but it’s not all that good either. The sad thing is that this isn’t even the lowest point of the franchise. Honestly, all things considered, I’d say this is the second best behind Anarchy. That’s why, at this point, I’m pretty much over these purge movies. They had their chance, none of them have really done it for me, I think it’s time to just let them die.
That’s not going to happen though because a Purge TV show is literally premiering soon and I’m sure there’ll be more movies soon, so it looks like we’re still in this for the long haul.
Watch the trailer for The First Purge here and let us know, in the comments below, what you thought about the film!