Why 'The Purge' Is The Most Frustrating Movie Franchise In The World
My name is Joey and I find the "Purge" movies endlessly frustrating. Since the original movie, "The Purge" made its debut in 2013, I've thought about this quite a lot. But as the fourth movie in the series, somewhat misleadingly named "The First Purge", hits theaters today, I can't escape it.
The frustration is too much. So I have decided to blog my way out of it.
If you haven't seen the trailer for "The First Purge," you can watch that here. But if you're a human with an internet connection and any semblance of a connection with mainstream movies and popular culture, you're likely already familiar with the series' premise:
In a dystopian United States that looks unsettlingly similar to our own, almost all crime — from murder to theft to arson to public urination — is legalized for one night per year.
It's an enchanting what-if. I actually think it might be a little too enchanting. Because these movies stink. They really do. They're trope-filled, boring takes on the home-invasion horror film, the heist film and the political/action thriller. And now we're getting a fourth entry which looks to be more of the same, which is to say garbage.
It's not that I wish they would stop making these films. It's that I wish they were never made to begin with. The very fact that this very good premise was allowed to enter the public consciousness will forever leave me wanting. I wish they never existed at all.
They Make A Lot Of Money
First, I know why the "Purge" movies exist. They, like all nearly all movies, have been ushered into the world by film executives in order to make money.
Despite its flaws, the "Purge" series is particularly good at this. IMDb estimates "The Purge" cost Universal Pictures roughly $3 million and then turned around and pulled in $90 million from box office sales. Its sequel, cost $9 million, and brought in $110 million worldwide. The third movie cost $10 million and raked in more than $118 million.
Finally, if today's release cost $13 million (an estimate from film site Box Office Mojo) it's safe to assume that should the trend continue, this movie will make a hell of a lot more than that.
Even Though They're Kind Of Unpopular
These movies essentially print cash. That's okay; good, even. It's what summer blockbusters are supposed to do. Curiously though, they also continually flop with critics and fans alike.
Take a look at these Rotten Tomato scores. Here's the original film:
A 38% from critics, a 36% from audience. "Attempts to make an intelligent point, but ultimately devolves." Fair. Sound. Relatively scathing. Let's look at number two:
56% from critics (which the review aggregation site still considers "rotten") and a 56% from audiences. "Uncommonly ambitions… never as smart or as resonant as it tries to be." Definitely an improvement. How did the third one do?
A 53% from critics, a 48% from audience. We're going in the wrong direction. Finally, a look into the future toward "The First Purge." Since this movie is new and only critics have gotten a chance to see and rate it on Rotten Tomatoes, it has a "Want To See" meter in place of an audience score and– wait, what the?
The critics who got to see "The First Purge" ahead of time have this movie pegged as a solid 50 out of 100, and hundreds of normal moviegoers like you and me are still tuning into Rotten Tomatoes to say they want to see it.
Why are we like this? Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we let Universal Pictures keep making "Purge" movies, only to be disappointed by them year after year?
I'm Pretty Sure There's Just Something About These Movies That Scratches An Itch In Our Brains
Scroll to a different section of IMDb, past the box office numbers and cast/crew information, and you'll arrive at a place that harvests a softer version of "data": user reviews. It is in this section of this website, I think, that we can find an explanation for why these movies are allowed to continue to exist.
On IMDb, "The Purge" has a user review score of 5.7, a bit higher than it does on Rotten Tomatoes (38% from critics and 36% from fans) or Metacritic (41%). But if you scroll through the IMDb user reviews and pay attention to the headlines, a trend emerges from the reviews that hover right around that 5.7 figure. Here's a handful from just the first page:
The extremely negative reviews just say the movie is bad. Haters gonna hate; that's just how the internet works. And there are obviously a handful of reviewers that liked the film enough to balance those haters out.
But look at all these reviews in the middle saying the same thing: the film could have been great, but it wasted the potential of its fantastic premise.
Think about it again. A world exactly like ours, but with the insane caveat that all of society has to deal with a twelve hour nationwide crime spree.
That premise is really, really good. It feels like it could be the basis for a good story, say something smart about society or just stir something up in its audience's imaginations. Unfortunately, the "Purge" movies have always fallen short of that.
"Tired clichés." "Never as it tries to be." "Wasted potential." Remember?
I think maybe the problem is that the premise already does these things by itself. If you hear the concept behind the "Purge" films once — and you likely will, because it's just one of those things that people seem to bring up a lot, even between movie releases — it sticks with you. It makes you ask "what if?" And when you finally do sit down in front of one of these multimillion dollar blockbusters, it's a huge letdown.
But it's not enough of a letdown that you will give up on the chance that Universal Pictures might someday get it right. And I think that's why we keep showing up.
Perhaps the real dystopia we should fear is the one we already live: having a new "Purge" film thrust upon us every 18 months or so. Until the end of modern civilization actually does arrive. Then — and only then — when movies, entertainment and all kinds of intriguing stories that make our brains go "huh" are but a distant memory will our society finally be rid of the crime that is this underachieving series.