Directed by James DeMonaco
Starring Ethan Hawke, Lena Headey, Adelaide Kane and Max Burkholder
Michael Bay.
Michael F**kin' Bay.
People who know me in my personal life know exactly what I think of this guy. Namely, that he has pretty much singlehandedly ruined movies, and not just action movies. Coming along in the mid-'90s, Bay arrived and said that stories could screw and explosions and excess were all people wanted to see. Several years later, people were eventually conditioned to believe him. Rare is the day at the multiplex in 2016 when I actually give a shit about anything that I'm watching, and we have Captain Explosive to thank for it. When you can do everything (and Bay can definitely do everything in terms of being a munitions expert posing as a director), you ironically can't do anything.
So when this dude bankrolls and/or makes preachy polemics about capitalism and excess, I cough even more than I ordinarily would with anybody else in charge. Bitch, please. Yeah, I know that Bay didn't direct The Purge, nor did he helm either of the two sequels - the latest of which having just opened up a couple weeks ago. I even know that it isn't just his Platinum Dunes production company that distributes them, with Blumhouse Productions sharing the load in this regard. But his imprint is all over this movie.
All bitching aside, James DeMonaco is the guy actually sitting in the director's chair for the flick and calling the shots as the screenwriter - just as he has for every movie in the trilogy. I have to give it to the guy for the concept. Unless you've been living under a rock, the story of The Purge goes like this - every year, the U.S. has a "purge night," where all crime is legal from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Cue loads of explosions, murder and all other manner of debauchery. Since this is a horror movie, he even has a pretty solid introducing hook, with a relatively happy, affluent family doing their best to wait out the night in their home. It's...the execution that just doesn't do it for me, as that scary concept gets buried under a bunch of semantics and some usual Michael Bay trappings. More on that later.
After the opening crawl that gives us some handy-dandy background information, DeMonaco does his job establishing our characters. Our main guy is James Sandin, played by Ethan Hawke as Ethan Hawke post-1990s slacker icon. His job: selling security systems meant specifically to survive Purge night. He has a gigantic house of his own, and the movie lays out an early hook as some of the neighbors are clearly jealous of his status. His wife Mary (Lena Headey) is just there, pretty much. Even after re-watching the movie for this review, I can't remember much about her with the exception of her big emotional speech toward the end. Thankfully, their kids are a bit more fleshed out. In the case of daughter Zoey (Adelaide Kane), quite literally, as she shares a makeout session with her boyfriend a few hours before the Purge begins complete with Michael Bay-style pervy cam capturing every bit of her ripe body.
But...this is a scary movie, and we need a reason for it to get SCARY. That opportunity comes in the form of the Sandin's son Charlie (Max Burkholder). He likes inventing little contraptions and he's the sensitive one in the family. After the house is locked down, the outside camera system picks up a solo man running in terror out on the streets, pleading for someone to let him in. Take three guesses as to who decides to open up the door. From here, the script kind of derails a bit as we get a bunch of different forms of melodrama, with James taking all kinds of issue with what his son has just done, teenage relationship BS as Mary's boyfriend has snuck back into the house to confront her disapproving dad...and the whole ultimatum that the murderous maniacs gathered outside have in store for the Sandins and their stowaways.
To be sure, the bad guys in this movie are cartoon characters. Having never seen the sequels, I'm 100% certain that this is also the case in those movies. They all wear these big, theatrical costumes and masks and speak in intentionally creepy voices. It's weird. Costumes have remarkable mind-over-matter powers, kind of like when I would dress up as Jason on Halloween and actually feel like a badass for the night. The lead guy is played by Rhys Wakefield, and he's undoubtedly the most memorable thing about the movie for better or worse. Eloquent and polite, he demands that the Sandins release the man they were after. Commence big debate. Later commence virtual "f**k you" to the Purgers. LATER later commence breaking into the house and a whole bunch of jump scares.
That's the big problem with The Purge - it just ain't scary. It's also not terribly interesting, as the characters are about as deep as a thimble and not terribly resonant. And that third trimester? Yeah, it goes full Michael Bay. And you never go full Michael Bay. It isn't quite as bad as the action movies that he's attached to in terms of shaki-cam, but it's still all sizzle, no steak. And...all of the politics and social stuff that the movie shoves at you takes away from the scare factor even more.
Maybe your tolerance for this stuff is higher than mine, but in my case, you're dealing with a guy who hides status updates for anyone on Facebook who posts something political. Ugh. Keep that stuff away from me.
Alright, well, time to assign a rating. Because it has a good concept and a decent build, I'll give the flick ** out of ****. Ultimately, though, it just falls apart, and I've never once been tempted to check out the sequels.
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