(Caution: This review contains spoilers)
I'll say this for The Purge: Anarchy: It is more entertaining than these crappy-assed shark mashup things that everyone is programmed into watching. I have no patience for intentionally bad movies. Give me incompetent morons who believe they are making something badass, but the results are cow flop. That stuff is much funnier.
I never saw the first Purge movie, but I heard that it was not necessary to do so to enjoy The Purge: Anarchy. So I, and a friend, went to see it last night at the cinema.
The Purge: Anarchy is bad. Really bad. Worse than Drive Angry. Worse than The Apparition. The acting is atrocious. The thin plot is stretched to the breaking point. And beyond. The political messages are so ham-handed and bonehead stupid that it borders on parody.
Let's see if I can rundown the story for you...
You know what THE PURGE is, right? If not, it is a night when all crime is legal. The idea is ostensibly to stop crime by allowing people to get their nasty, violent urges out on one night of the year. But it really is a way for conservative white America to deplete the poor population. And to make some righteous money in the bargain.
OK, so we meet two women. Mother and daughter. The daughter is sassy and unsurprisingly understands the real deal about THE PURGE, but gosh darn it, no one will listen. These two ladies are selected to be kidnapped on the night of--THE PURGE--so they can be auctioned off for slaughter by evil Christians, ala Hostel.
We also meet this couple going through a tumultuous breakup. The sheer emotion in their performances is breathtaking.
No, scratch that. These are two of the most bland individuals I have ever seen in a movie. Period. I'm talking NADA. No personality. No identifying traits. Nothing at all.
Well, it would not be a movie if they weren't stranded outside during THE PURGE. The ladies are saved by this guy who is sort of the destitute man's Christian Bale. There are a lot of embarrassing posing shots of him, oozing with bad-guy mystery and danger. He is clearly on a mission out in THE PURGE.
Our heroes are saved and cast back out into THE PURGE a few times. One memorable scene in an apartment features the most annoying family I've seen since I got stuck watching The Royal Tenenbaums.
Oh, wait. I am getting ahead of myself. See, there is this resistance against THE PURGE. The leader graduated from The Wesley Snipes School of Grotesque Hammy Acting. He preaches a bunch of malarkey about death and bloodshed to stop the death and bloodshed of THE PURGE.
By the time the lackluster characters were hauled up on stage to be sold off to the Evil Old White People, my friend and I were laughing openly. It was just so ridiculous.
I muttered to her that the movie would earn points if the old bag running the auction were to die in a particularly nasty way, but they messed up even that crucial point.
I can't imagine anyone was surprised when the brooding hero saw the error of his vengeful ways at the end of the movie.
Funny thing: The secret police, or whoever they were, were a lot more interested in the bogus Christian Bale than the resistance. Even while the resistance were doing their own fair share of purging on the Christians. "We can't have any heroes", he was told by one grim soldier. And just before he was about to be shot down like the dog he is, Bam!, game over. THE PURGE had ended for another year, and the cops could no longer take action against citizens.
Our dark knight was injured, which led to the most hilarious part of the movie. They pull up to the hospital, which was free and clear. No lines, no waiting! On the day after THE PURGE! People were going to work and stuff like any other day. Absolutely ludicrous.
Then there were the random LOL moments, such as when a bloody Carrie lookalike was hanging out on a street corner, or when a flaming bus roared through an intersection in the background of one scene for no logical reason than the filmmakers thought it would look really cool.
We are given an ominous warning at the end of the movie that THE PURGE would happen again in exactly one year.
My God, The Purge: Anarchy is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever seen. It uses elements of infinitely superior movies like Escape From New York, The Warriors, Death Race 2000, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, and, yes, Hostel, stirs them up and takes a dump on them.
Not that I did not have a good time. Rarely do I regret seeing a movie. I saw The Purge: Anarchy with the same lady I saw The Lords of Salem with. And while we were not howling with laughter as hard as we were as we stumbled out of Rob Zombie's monstrously self-indulgent and stupefying movie, we were laughing quite a bit. And we also felt an acid-like sense of deja vu about Lords of Salem as we watched The Purge: Anarchy.
I'll say this for The Purge: Anarchy: It is more entertaining than these crappy-assed shark mashup things that everyone is programmed into watching. I have no patience for intentionally bad movies. Give me incompetent morons who believe they are making something badass, but the results are cow flop. That stuff is much funnier.I never saw the first Purge movie, but I heard that it was not necessary to do so to enjoy The Purge: Anarchy. So I, and a friend, went to see it last night at the cinema.
The Purge: Anarchy is bad. Really bad. Worse than Drive Angry. Worse than The Apparition. The acting is atrocious. The thin plot is stretched to the breaking point. And beyond. The political messages are so ham-handed and bonehead stupid that it borders on parody.
Let's see if I can rundown the story for you...
You know what THE PURGE is, right? If not, it is a night when all crime is legal. The idea is ostensibly to stop crime by allowing people to get their nasty, violent urges out on one night of the year. But it really is a way for conservative white America to deplete the poor population. And to make some righteous money in the bargain.
OK, so we meet two women. Mother and daughter. The daughter is sassy and unsurprisingly understands the real deal about THE PURGE, but gosh darn it, no one will listen. These two ladies are selected to be kidnapped on the night of--THE PURGE--so they can be auctioned off for slaughter by evil Christians, ala Hostel.
We also meet this couple going through a tumultuous breakup. The sheer emotion in their performances is breathtaking.
No, scratch that. These are two of the most bland individuals I have ever seen in a movie. Period. I'm talking NADA. No personality. No identifying traits. Nothing at all.
Well, it would not be a movie if they weren't stranded outside during THE PURGE. The ladies are saved by this guy who is sort of the destitute man's Christian Bale. There are a lot of embarrassing posing shots of him, oozing with bad-guy mystery and danger. He is clearly on a mission out in THE PURGE.
Our heroes are saved and cast back out into THE PURGE a few times. One memorable scene in an apartment features the most annoying family I've seen since I got stuck watching The Royal Tenenbaums.
Oh, wait. I am getting ahead of myself. See, there is this resistance against THE PURGE. The leader graduated from The Wesley Snipes School of Grotesque Hammy Acting. He preaches a bunch of malarkey about death and bloodshed to stop the death and bloodshed of THE PURGE.
By the time the lackluster characters were hauled up on stage to be sold off to the Evil Old White People, my friend and I were laughing openly. It was just so ridiculous.
I muttered to her that the movie would earn points if the old bag running the auction were to die in a particularly nasty way, but they messed up even that crucial point.
I can't imagine anyone was surprised when the brooding hero saw the error of his vengeful ways at the end of the movie.
Funny thing: The secret police, or whoever they were, were a lot more interested in the bogus Christian Bale than the resistance. Even while the resistance were doing their own fair share of purging on the Christians. "We can't have any heroes", he was told by one grim soldier. And just before he was about to be shot down like the dog he is, Bam!, game over. THE PURGE had ended for another year, and the cops could no longer take action against citizens.
Our dark knight was injured, which led to the most hilarious part of the movie. They pull up to the hospital, which was free and clear. No lines, no waiting! On the day after THE PURGE! People were going to work and stuff like any other day. Absolutely ludicrous.
Then there were the random LOL moments, such as when a bloody Carrie lookalike was hanging out on a street corner, or when a flaming bus roared through an intersection in the background of one scene for no logical reason than the filmmakers thought it would look really cool.
We are given an ominous warning at the end of the movie that THE PURGE would happen again in exactly one year.
My God, The Purge: Anarchy is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever seen. It uses elements of infinitely superior movies like Escape From New York, The Warriors, Death Race 2000, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, and, yes, Hostel, stirs them up and takes a dump on them.
Not that I did not have a good time. Rarely do I regret seeing a movie. I saw The Purge: Anarchy with the same lady I saw The Lords of Salem with. And while we were not howling with laughter as hard as we were as we stumbled out of Rob Zombie's monstrously self-indulgent and stupefying movie, we were laughing quite a bit. And we also felt an acid-like sense of deja vu about Lords of Salem as we watched The Purge: Anarchy.
The author does not allow comments to this entry
No comments