The Purge: Anarchy (2014, James DeMonaco)

Having just recently seen the first of "The Purge" films, I was noticing that people were favoring this sequel over it quite a bit. After checking this one out, I must say, I personally think the first one was a better film.

I'm not really going to waste too much time on the run-down, since everyone pretty much knows the drill: The Purge is where one night out of the year the U.S. government grants it's citizens a legal 12-hour crime free-for-all. Well, this time around, the focus is not on the upscale 'burbs, but the urban environment and how THEY "celebrate" the annual Purging...

First off, there was definitely some interesting stuff going on in this one that sheds some new light on the different 'customs' surrounding the whole class-warfare element of the purging tradition. Such as sickly elders being purchased by rich Purge participants to slaughter in the security of their homes and other such despicable 'business' tactics carried out by the imperious wealthy. Where my major gripe lies with this follow-up is in that there's just too much going on too fast that a lot of  the ideas - while mostly promising - just felt wasted in the long-run. Having a couple's car break down around 'ground zero' of prime Purging mayhem was a good idea. Having a guy in an armor-plated car with an endless gun supply looking for vengeance from a past Purge was another good idea. There's some interesting street-Purgers - one of whom with some high-powered weaponry in the back of an 18-wheeler and an anti-Purge organization... All of it just felt largely underplayed to me. I guess too many people were upset that the Ethan Hawke one apparently blew it by keeping the framework more along the lines of a horror movie, that they decided to go the more fitting "Escape from New York" route this time around. Unfortunately, they spoiled most of their potentially cool ideas by cramming them all into one movie that never really focuses on anything long enough for it to really work or be all that effective. Also, it didn't really help that the violence never manages to exceed the light' R-rated studio standards which was pretty disappointing. Because the first one was obviously on a much smaller scale, the amount of bloodshed and violence was acceptable enough, but when you take The Purge to the streets I would expect a much higher capacity of brutality. I'm just sayin'...

In all, while it had potential, I thought "The Purge: Anarchy" left a bit much to be desired. It might've been made a little too fast for what they were trying to do. Obviously, I gotta say I dug the first one over this for it's much more solid suspense and tone. Sorry.