Review – The Purge: Election Year

I absolutely hated The Purge (2013).  It was a unique idea, but it failed miserably on all fronts.  Never in my mind did I think it would get a sequel, let alone a trilogy, but here we are, because fuck it, why not?  The Purge: Anarchy took the series into a totally different direction, making it more of an action-horror film.  It was a better movie than the first, but that isn’t saying much.  That’s essentially by opinion of The Purge: Election Year.  It’s better than the first movie, but still a missed opportunity on a cool idea.

The Purge: Election Year takes our protagonist from the second film, Leo Barnes (Frank Grillo) and has him working as a Secret Service Agent for a senator (Elizabeth Mitchell) who wants to end the annual Purge.  While protecting her on Purge night, someone in the Secret Service betrays them, attempting to kill the senator.  Now, Barnes and a few fellow citizens must team up to keep the senator alive.

The movie plays out like an old-school B-movie, giving every character a slight backstory to make us kind of care, but never fully develop them enough to have us care when they die.  There is the senator trying to end the Purge, the grizzled Secret Service Agent, a shop owner protecting his store, a young kid the shop owner has taken under his wing, and Purger with a heart.  This ragtag group takes through the entire Purge night, as they spit ridiculous one-liners and shoot enough bullets to supply a large army.  And speaking of bullets, the deaths in this movie are pretty cool in the first half of the movie, as are the new Purgers.  The killings are more brutal and the Purgers are more insane.

The Purge: Election Year sticks to it’s action-horror genre, which is cool, because there aren’t a lot of movies like that out there.  This time, however, the film gets rid of its “Survive the Purge” plot and actually tries to have a story about why the Purge is bad and about a group who thinks it is great and what is best for America.  It doesn’t really work, however, as the movie loses its violent fun and becomes rather boring and dumb.  This probably has to do with the lack of character development I mentioned above.  A modern B-movie like this shouldn’t try to have a message.  It should just be complete and utter chaos from start to finish, which is something The Purge: Election Year is not.

The Purge: Election Year is not a horrible movie like The Purge, but it isn’t a good one, either.  It had the potential to be a stupid, fun, violent B-movie, but instead tries to have a plot and message and it fails terribly.  This is just another unnecessary film in an unnecessary trilogy.

MY RATING – 2/4

Did you see The Purge: Election Year?  What did you think?  Comment below or hit me up on Twitter @kevflix or on Facebook at Kevflix.