The Purge: Anarchy. A Foreshadowing?

THE PURGE: ANARCHY:  2014: --: HORROR:  After watching The Purge: Anarchy, it's eerily similar to Ferguson, Missouri. Based on the looting, theft, and overall anarchy, segments of the public have risen against the police department and created a nightly scene that resembles some parts of this movie.  I don't want to keep drawing parallels here, but I would be remiss if I didn't state this.

 
Eerily similar are the scenes from Anarchy and Ferguson, MI.

It does demonstrate how tenuous the strands of society are and how an event like the shooting of Michael Brown can cause huge rifts that lead to violence and borderline lack of societal control.  

  

Of course, in Anarchy, this violence is intentional and the premise of the movie is that once a year crime is allowed and is used to rid society of the weak and "undesirables".  If you have seen the first one, you get the gist.  

This movie had a challenge because once you got over the initial novelty the first movie introduced, it's hard to find something compelling about the same idea of having a night of pure crime and unadulterated violence. Some aspects were actually pretty annoying, including some of the villains.  


This was one of the more annoying villains. His head is always sideways.

However, I was surprised that this movie actually had some bite to it. After the first one, I assumed it was going to be more of the same, but this one included some new aspects such as killing squads, conspiracies and other elements that differentiated it from the first and took the evolving franchise a step further.


Anarchy adds to the first movie and takes it a step or two further.

This isn't to say that the movie was incredibly original but it did have some gruesome killings, colorful characters and interesting plot changes.  I won't call them twists because they were predictable but worthy of mention. 


Some of the murders were gruesome..

One of the slicker elements was the addition of Big Daddy, which reminded me of Bioshock, the video game, but just in name. Utilizing a minigun (there is nothing mini about it, that's just it's name), he rides behind a tractor trailer and assists in killing more of the undesirables.  These tractor trailers comprise a new component of the movie that lend to some uniqueness when compared to the original where there wasn't much logic behind the purging.


Big Daddy was pretty intimidating.

The movie took on a sort of "survival against a common enemy" as shown in some zombie movies because three totally different groups of people converge to assist each other against the purgers. The final act of the movie is similar to a few other horror movies and I won't give it away.  It did give the movie more depth regardless.


What's she so happy about?  Watch it and find out..

Did this movie revolutionize the action/ horror genre?  No, but it was entertaining enough and a pretty decent sequel.  Not to be redundant, but it gave me creeps the other day watching this after watching some of the scenes from Ferguson.  Do you disagree with this sentiment? 73%  

The Weekly Showcase: The Purge

THE PURGE: 2013: ++: HRR:  First of all, I'm going to say that I loved this movie.  It's probably one of the most original movies that has been made lately and made me think of Orwell's 1984 and Wachowski's V for Vendetta. Those are some pretty big shoes to fill right?  Absolutely, and this movie doesn't disappoint.  

I had no idea what to expect but once I saw Lena Headey, of Game of Thrones, I was immediately drawn in.  She is an excellent actress who never seems to lose a part.  She is very versatile and James DeMonaco, who wrote and directed this excellent movie, made a great decision to cast her.  Not only that, but Ethan Hawke, ala Gattica (I need to review that movie, stay tuned), acted just as well as he did in any one of his movies.  He is one of the more underrated actors of his age.  But Lena Headey takes the show.  I can be a little bit fan-boy here, but she looked great.  I like the short, black hair.  Can she look bad?  

The pacing, music, plot structure, and foreshadowing makes this movie a sleeper hit.  It wasn't really received well and a certain other blog, Rotten Tomatoes, hated it.  Really though, they are just a bunch of bitter, uninformed haters that love to kill movies unless every loves them and then they just jump on the band wagon.  Hey, take a stance on something!  Like a movie because you like it.  

This movie has about 3 different periods, the beginning, the development, and the assault, kind of like a piano sonata.  I really can't find an issue with this movie.  Why?  Because I wasn't bored and I loved the twist, as well as the dynamic elements of the enemies who become friends and vice-versa.  

There are some real moral lessons here without being preachy. Stand out scenes are when they tear down the steel plates, when the preppy killers gather outside, when the neighbors try to kill Lena, and finally, when Ethan starts killing.  What a great movie. Watch it now and learn something about our sometimes hypocritical society:::92%