Escape to the Movies: The Purge

[Starik20X6]

The best thing about this movie is on Youtube:

 

[Boogie Knight]

Hey guys, there's already a movie which takes a similar concept and does it better. Just watch Zebraman 2: Attack on Zebra City (Wait, see the original first, cause it's core concept is pure magic). And it works better than The Purge because Zebraman 2 has the sense to depict the man responsible for instituting a law which legalizes murder as a frickin' lunatic. Let's not forget that he is also the most faaaaaaabulous fascist scumbag you'll ever see in cinema. Seriously, in this despotic regime, the stormtroopers double as back up dancers.

No, really.

As for the Purge, this class thing is so dull. The elaborate back story is little more than Hollywood twits poking in the eye people they don't like with Saturday morning cartoon caricatures. There are so many other themes such a premise could address: tribalism, primitivism in a world with tanks and ICBMs, "is violence part of human nature or a reaction to the harsh realities of existence?", "do we secretly crave to see civilization go up in smoke?", chicks with swords.

 

[Giest4life]

Eh, Bob? I thought that the Purge is a stupid idea to begin with; nothing but a cheap plot device. Not that I think there is anything inherently wrong with the idea, and, in fact, I think it is quite an interesting one. Something like the Purge which seems so fundamentally contrary to our modern definition of society would need an an extremely cogent and well explained justification. Something, which I suspect, is quite beyond the skill of these filmmakers.

EDIT:

You guys are talking of "wasted potential".

Seriously.

WHAT POTENTIAL WAS THERE TO WASTE?!

Lets be clear, The entirety of the movie is based around a really fucking STUPID idea. It ignores everything from history to sociology to economics. Leaving aside the people who would get killed or wounded in this situation due to violence (no easy task), it would end in billions of dollars of property damage. Manufacturing equipment, power lines, sewage treatment, infrastructure, vehicles, hospitals, schools. Tools used for economic activity and to support human life and comfort, which need to be replaced. As for money, you know what many people who had the money to do so would do to the US if "The Purge" was put into practice? LEAVE. They would buy tickets to Canada, Australia, the UK, the EU, Israel, South Africa, Japan and get citizenship there and take their money with them. Businesses would do the same as well as well. You know why you see "made in china" on so many things nowadays? Well partially it has to do with the Chinese workforce being willing to settle for lower wages. But many places in Africa often has even lower standards of living than China does. Now why don't big multinationals send as much work to Africa as they do to China? Many reasons, among them being education and infrastructure, but also big on that list is the fact that China is fairly stable and orderly and not wracked with constant fighting. If you own a factory, among the things you don't want to have happen is having it trashed by a bunch of machine gun wielding idiots having a fight. I also would not want to have to pay for the heavily armed rent-a-cops. If the purge happened and I owned a factory, I would pack it up and move it to a place were their was still rule of law. The purge would, in no uncertain terms, leave America bankrupt, impoverished and ravaged by violence and no amount of half assed "it's in our nature to be violent so we have to let it out" nonsense will make up for it.

Human civilization did not create laws for yuks. We have them and decided to (at least nominally and when we fail to do so, it is just that, a failure on the end of the executing individuals, not the principle, and negatively effects people) enforce them uniformly because they are useful tools to have. Honestly, you could make a better case that mandating that everyone wears must wear a T-shirt with a picture of a badger on it with violators being thrown in prison on it would decrease crime rate and improve the economy than saying the purge is a good idea.

Now some of you guys are going to say "willing suspension of disbelief", but no that does not stand up. I can buy that a ship could fly Faster than Light. There might be some secret of quantum physics out their that allows us to get around the Einsteinian speed limit in some manner or other. Radio 200 years ago would have sounded like magic as well. It's best if you don't talk about how your space opera's hyperspace works on a highly technical level about it's mechanical operation because they are in the end talking out of their ass. And despite that, it is usually used to serve the purpose of allowing humanity to operate on an interstellar level and is not an active insult to the intelligence of anyone who thinks logically about it for ten seconds.

Zor

Almost exactly what I mean by "contrary to our modern definition of society". Unlike my friend Imperator-Zor, however, I am willing to concede that some creative genius might just come up with working explanation of the Purge.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

You know, I don't even think the premise sounds good. It's a stretch a bit too far, there are too many holes in it, it's also pretty obvious- I've heard many conversations about 'what if everything was legal for a day'- no one made a movie out of it because it's silly.

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

The premise of this movie sounds creepy as fuck. Too bad they completely wasted it. Though I do love listening to Bob rip a movie to shreds and talk about what it should have done

More hating on Mitt Romney. I don't even like the guy, so why do I feel the need to jump in on people bashing him? I'm just a weirdo like that, I guess.
Anyway, still a good review. I already wasn't going to see this movie, but at least now I know exactly what's wrong with it. Oh and hey, another Robocop fan! Yay!

I think he was just in the lime light too much and we heard a lot his opinions and he just came to represent oblivious wealthy people. I agree with ya. I don't like him but its not personal

Thanks for being so polite. I was totally expecting to get flamed.

That feel when you're complemented for being polite

Spoiler

 

[MrCalypso]

Somehow I think The Purge would make a better shared world anthology book than a movie...

 

[RedDeadFred]

Hey, leave Romney alone. He has problems too:

OT: This sucks. I was so excited for the premise. Hopefully someone else will make a movie with a similar premise and do it justice.

 

[geldonyetich]

I dunno, Bob, I think the premise itself was stupid, too. While idea of the purge may be interesting, it can't happen without opening up massive, movie-wide plot holes. For example:

• 1. The idea that there would be no ramifications for the purge since the government was not going to punish anyone for it. Oh, I'm pretty sure people would be adequately pissed off to make people pay for what transpired anyway.
  
  2. The idea a government can just condone 12 hours of complete anarchy. No, it's more like people start wheeling out the guillotines and, 12 hours later, you have a new government.
  
  3. The idea you can enforce "level 10" government officials are safe and "class 4" weapons are restricted. With what? The social services that are not there during the purge? They would be far too busy dealing with the chaos in the streets for that to happen.
  
  4. The idea that the economy would improve because of the purge. No, the acts we typically call "crimes" cause economic damage, and not because we arrest people for doing them them.
  
  5. The idea that the rich folk treat the purge as an excuse to make poor people their plaything. No, I'm pretty sure the socially disadvantaged would take this as a marvelous opportunity to arm themselves and claw their way up from the bottom as violently as possible, and they're going to be going where the money is, so it's pretty much a complete reversal.

And so on. I don't know what kind of minds thought that how "the purge" would go, but I'm pretty sure they're mostly trust fund kids. Basically, this "purge" concept was only good for an excuse to have a horror movie, and that's what they ended up with. A home invasion for emotional significance because: money.

 

[Olas]

It's always a bad sign when the trailer for your movie says "from the creators of Paranormal Activity", but even for them this movie looks like an insult to my intelligence.

I've thought the premise of this movie was astonishingly retarded the moment I heard about it. Of course, most of my friends thought this movie sounded great and intelligent. I'm glad my opinions were founded. lol

I'm glad I'm not the only one, the whole "purge" idea sounds like something an 8 year old would come up with when asked how to solve the world's problems.

 

[80sboy]

The whole idea behind the movie makes me angry.

Yeah, same here.

As if the following day after the purge, everyone would go back to their merry on way of living.

........

Two neighbors greet each other in suburbia.

Joe: Hey Fred, how you doing today?

Fred: Not bad, you?

Joe: Oh, I'm okay...anyways, I see that you raped and murdered my 12 year old daughter, than chopped her head off and placed it on a spike, and placed it on your lawn?

Fred: Yup, good ol' purge last night, that was a lot of fun, you do anything?

Joe: Nah...I slept in.

Fred: well, no hard feelings right?

Joe:...

Fred: hey man, it's the purge, better luck next year.

........

Anyways, sufficed to say, I don't see civilization going on its merry way, after craziness like that. And just how twisted does the film makers think people really are given the chance? Not saying there isn't a dark side to people. But as if all human civility stems from fear of punishment, not some form of compassion or pity or sympathy towards fellow man. Those qualities don't exist in humans - right? The idea of this movie makes me sick to my stomach.

>>

 

[thenumberthirteen]

Drat. I saw a poster for this and the "freedom day" premise really hooked me in, and I wanted to see what they did with it. It is such a good idea for a movie. A shame to see it wasted like this. Somebody really needs to take this high concept setting and run with it.

I mean contrast this movie with something like Daybreakers (also starring Ethan Hawke).In that film they take the concept of "what if everyone was turned into a vampire" and they explore it. That movie could have been about one Vampire running away from a coven and trying to become human again while the family chases him. It needn't have the whole world be vampires and the central plot would be the same. Instead they showed you how the world works when you're vampires. There's no mirrors on cars (no reflections), every house has sun shields, and the mechanics and politics of feeding a nation when humans are a dwindling resource. They even explore the fact that vampires don't grow old in a simple and powerful scene. That was a concept well executed.

The Purge could have said "today the whole police force has gone on strike because the government cut their wages" or something to the same effect. What a shame

 

[gjkbgt]

I Still think that even if you sepened law people wouldn't go around murdering one another
People are basically selfish and you get nothing/very little from killing a homeless guy.
Rape on the other had that would be massive. If you are the type of psychopath that can murder for teh lolz imagine what happens if you see a good looking girl who you know you never stand a change with in real life but tonight you have a gun and she doesn't

 

[Dominic Crossman]

While I've agreed with these reviews the past few times I've seen them, I will never forget he suggested inglorious basterds a brilliant movie when it is in my top 3 worse movies I have ever seen.

 

[Terramax]

I literally jumped off feet when I heard Bob say his favourite film is 'Robocop'.

Hey, movie Bob, internet high five!

 

[Farther than stars]

Its a sad state of affairs that I can't even fault you for being that pessimistic really. Still, I think you're the only person I've seen this year who isn't hype for Pacific Rim

Is that the one about the giant robots fighting monsters from under the sea? The one that looks like Evangelion, but with a burly, hard-boiled soldier for a protagonist instead of a wanker kid? Yeah, that's what I want to see, a live-action anime in which one set of cliche characters are replaced with a completely different set of cliche characters.

Are you implying that because you don't want to see it, the film as a whole should not exist for other people to enjoy?

After careful consideration, I have decided that, no, this is not what I'm implying. Nothing, in fact, is being *implied* at all. What is being *expressed* is well-earned cynicism about the film industry and its output. It's all quite out in the open, you'll notice.

I was just checking, because your sarcastic statement is ambiguous in its intent. Either it was countering the notion that Sean Kay's enthusiasm was appropriate (bad) or it was saying that you are 'another one of the people who are not hype [sic] for Pacific Rim' (legitimate, but unnecessary). Then I questioned you about it and it turned out to be the latter; Schrödinger's box is now open and the cat is alive. Like I said, I was just checking.

 

[TrulyBritish]

What's the "boyfriend subplot" that he mentions in the stinger? I haven't seen the movie and I have no desire to, but I'm curious what's going on with that.

Just as it sounds, the girl of the family has a boyfriend that the father doesn't approve of. Naturally, he remains in the house for the Purge and loses any relevance after about 5 minutes.

 

[ThunderCavalier]

Dammit, I was hoping that this was gonna be a good film. >_<

I was gonna ask some people if they wanted to see this sometime later. Whelp, that's out. Maybe I'll just invite them over and play Toy Story 3 instead.

 

[ThunderCavalier]

What's the "boyfriend subplot" that he mentions in the stinger? I haven't seen the movie and I have no desire to, but I'm curious what's going on with that.

Just as it sounds, the girl of the family has a boyfriend that the father doesn't approve of. Naturally, he remains in the house for the Purge and loses any relevance after about 5 minutes.

Boyfriend shows up. Boyfriend wants approval. Boyfriend gets shot. Boyfriend dies.

Best. Subplot. Ever.

 

[TrulyBritish]

What's the "boyfriend subplot" that he mentions in the stinger? I haven't seen the movie and I have no desire to, but I'm curious what's going on with that.

Just as it sounds, the girl of the family has a boyfriend that the father doesn't approve of. Naturally, he remains in the house for the Purge and loses any relevance after about 5 minutes.

Boyfriend shows up. Boyfriend wants approval. Boyfriend gets shot. Boyfriend dies.

Best. Subplot. Ever.

I'd advise you to spoiler that but I'm not sure there's really a point. If there's someone who can't spot the boyfriends intent after like his first ominous sentence I'd be surprised.

 

[wearesoneutralthatithurts]

I think it can go further than the binge day thing. People contemplating their morality, riots and revolutions going on, the change in sciencedue to the incusion of forbidden research.

Well, people dont know science very well-12 hours are nothing to find relevant stuff out. Okay, you can construct the experiments and thing about them outside the 12-h time, but most experiments need more time.
And the most forbidden stuff is synthezising drugs-but that illegal all time an nobody gives a fuck and, well i think medical experiments with humans-but must of these need more than 12 hours too, because you want to know long term effects and not just "does it kill or does it well"
and well playing with humane stem cells or cloning humans and such are forbidden-but cloning needs at least 9 months and working with cells needs also a hell lot of time and very very very good and sterile work(and if someone gets the idea that medical and scientificx equipment is millions worth, you wont work, you will defend your property.
so, no science, 12 hours ist too short for that.