New Release Birb: The First Purge

The First Purge
Starring: Y'Lan Noel and Lex Scott Davis
Directed by Gerald McMurray
US Release Date: 4 July 2018
My First Viewing: 3 July 2018
image credit: movieposter.com

The First Purge, which is technically the fourth film in the financially successful Purge franchise, tells the story and the events which led to, you guessed it, the first Purge experiment.

This time around, we follow Nya (Lex Scott Davis) and her brother Isaiah (Joivan Wade) through Staten Island as the New Founding Fathers are days away from beginning the experiment. This test, by whatever nefarious means are required, tries to prove that by letting out all of your anger and frustrations through one twelve-hour period every year where you can do whatever you want, including murder, is better for society as a whole. Overseeing the experiment is Dr. Updale (Marissa Tomei) and NFF Chief of Staff Arlo Sabian (Patch Darragh).

With this being the fourth film in the franchise, there are parallels that can be drawn to the Purge and the Saw series that were the boom of horror films a decade ago. The first films were gritty pieces of story-telling that proved you didn't need a big budget to do effective horror. The second films upped the ante with a bigger budget, better production, and were arguably the best in their respective franchise. Now we are at film four, which with Saw IV and The First Purge, is now disinteresting rehashes of what came before it.

The performances of Davis and Wade, as well as Y'lan Noel as King of Staten Island Dmitri were all solid in their own rights. It's the overall story that was the biggest disappointment. James Demonaco, who is the writer on all four Purge films, could have turned the entire series on its ear by giving us an in-depth story of the inner workings of how the Purge came to be. Instead, we get the same three-step process of central characters complaining/protesting about the Purge itself, followed by over-the-top gory violence where the protagonists are in peril, and concluding with the savior coming to the rescue with Ramboesque abilities that defy most laws of realism. This film will make its budget back and then some, which will justify the fifth Purge sometime in the summer of 2020. Hopefully, it will evolve into something fresh, or much like Saw V, will be the beginning of the end of this series.

The First Purge is rated R for strong graphic violence, language, sexuality, and drug use. What are your thoughts? Follow me on facebook and instagram and let me know what you think.

-birb

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