Anyone else go and see this? I never saw the first one as the reviews on it were mostly meh and while it seemed high-concept it seemed to have a pretty generic home-invasion story. The sequel, however, takes the concept and opens up into a survival-thriller movie set throughout the city. Several groups of strangers, a couple on the verge of separation, a woman and her daughter drug out of their apartment by a group rounding up people to be "auctioned off" for purging to rich people, and a man out for vengeance against the drunk-driver who killed his son find themselves thrown together on the one night of the year all crime is legal, including murder. And it actually really works throughout as the characters interact and the main one actually has an arc in it. Really enjoyed it and a movie that really expands on the concept set-up in the first movie.
Liked it, but I preferred the original. The new plot turned it from a horror movie into "Escape From whatever city That was supposed to be..."
These films would need to have awfully good reviews and word of mouth for me to see them. I have trouble taking the premise seriously. 1) That all people would degenerate into murderous psychopaths if only the law wasn't there to stop them. 2) That having this one day where all crime is legal 'Gets the murder out of their systems' so they behave civilly the rest of the year. 3) That just murdering a bunch of poor people once a year would actually yield positive results for society. 4) That this would not really result in people banding together to protect each other and a few people making millions by protecting people for the night for money. 5) That people would not seek out revenge for acts carried out during the purge for the rest of the year just because doing so is no longer legal. For me to plunge THIS deep into the suspension of disbelief pool it better have the most compelling characters in the history of cinema.
A lot of your points are addressed in both films. But I agree the premise is paper thin and rips apart if you think too deeply about it. I was very lukewarm about the first Purge movie but the sequel is quite good. The John Carpenter influences are much stronger this time around and I actually cared about the characters. Despite my reluctance to like this film, the story pulled me in and I found myself invested in the plot's outcome. My enjoyment of this movie was a nice surprise.
I'm not exactly having a hard time believing that one. (I mean, what ELSE is going to stop them, if not the law?) I do agree that people could band together to protect themselves. As easy, and likely, as it is for humans to degenerate to the level of being nasty, brutal, vicious animals - it's in human nature to do so - it's equally likely that some groups might say "Enough!" and try to put some order to that chaos. (Indeed, that's what gives rise to governments and the law in the first place. There will never be real anarchy for very long; *some* kind of government will always arise.) There might even be roving bands of 'cops' who make it a point to patrol the streets during the Purge and at least try to keep things safe...
As said, a lot of your complaints are more or less addressed in the movie to some degree or another. But, none the less it is indeed a very, very thin and ridiculous premise to build a movie on but no more ridiculous than any other movie of this type or genre. I mean, does it make sense to turn all of Manhattan island into a prison and just let the criminals run amok and do whatever? Does it make sense to send a couple dozen kids into a survival situation and let them kill each other off and broadcast everything on TV? The premise is very, very, thin but it still makes for an interesting movie here.
Don't take this the wrong way, but this is a very scary statement to hear. To think that there would ever be a time that we might actually WANT the Purge to happen...it speaks to our darker nature, I think. It shows just how violent humans can be. (I admit I have also thought about it. And I'm ashamed for even thinking it.) And it also shows why the Purge would never work in real life - it would tear society apart in a very short time. Chaos is a jealous god; it tolerates no order whatsoever. To put it another way: It would be MUCH harder to add TO order when there's not enough of it, than to take a little bit away when there's too much. (Sure, the actual Purge only lasts for a few hours, but that's all it would take for everything to fall down. A lot of damage can be done in that short a time - damage which could never be repaired.)
I liked this movie. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday evening. I never saw the first, heard it was quite bad.
Indeed. I mean the thing preventing me from going out and killing people, raping, and stealing isn't the fact that it's against the law. It's the fact that, well, it's not something that's in me as a person to do. And I'm sure it's like that for a great many people. In fact one of the things that happens in this movie is that it's said not enough people are purging because most people just lock themselves in doors and the you get the actual psychopaths (the people who'd rape, steel, kill anyway) out there committing crimes with a carte blanche.
Trekker and Locutus - I do apologize if I offended you by my (typical) overreaction; of course people like us can be trusted. We all know each other here on this board; we know we are basically stable people. But the sad fact is, there ARE psychos out there, and there will always be. It's one of the functions of government - maybe the most important function - to protect us from them. And it's why the Purge would never work IRL - because if the government doesn't protect us, who will? Not everyone has the ability or the time to turn their homes and communities into armed camps. And like I said, the very fact that WE can think of reasons why we'd want a Purge, or what we would do to people if we had, proves that civilization can't be trusted with one.
I guess I should have added some more quotation marks and winky smiley faces aroundthe word """purged""" in my post for Mr. Laser Beam. I really wasn't serious.
Of course there's always psychos out there. But, by and large most of the human population is sane, rational, and don't kill only because there's a law against it.