The Purge franchise is quite strange.
It contains one of the most fascinating and original premises for any film for the past
decade, but yet the franchise hasn't ever been able to be more than just B-horror movie
schtick, with decent reviews but not great and really struggling to execute on its amazing
premise.
Unfortunately, The First Purge continues this trend, maybe even more so.
It's by far the weakest entry in the series with the way it tries to dish out the most
thematic messages and symbolism.
But at the end of the day, it all comes off feeling way too heavy handed and forceful,
and its interesting message gets lost along the way.
If you didn't already know, The First Purge is a prequel taking place before the events
of the first film in the franchise.
As its title suggests, it centers on the very first purge being implemented and tested out
for future, how should I say, consumption.
The film is set on Staten Island where this bloody experiment takes place and the movie
follows Dimtri, Nya, and Issiah, with the action mostly set in poor neighborhoods involving
mostly minorities and poor families, and this is very important.
One of the big twists in the film is that most of the crazed people we see participating
in the purge are not actually those living in Staten Island, regular everyday folks who
just want to let off some steam.
It turns out The New Founding Fathers (essentially a satirical take on the Trump administration)
sends out militia and hate groups to wreak havoc and make it look like the purge is a
real success, which is designed to keep the crime rate and population down.
This is why colorful and sadisc-looking masks are often used during the purge, as the milita
and hate groups needed to disguise themselves.
Of course the woman who designed the purge, played by marris tolma, finds out and goes
to staten island, only to get killed.
The Founding Fathers delete the footage so no one ever knows the true secret behind the
purge.
As the film's post-credits scene suggests, the first purge is being viewed as a huge
success across the country and there are plans set to implement this event every year in
the country.
Now it's basically confirmed there has been government meddling throughout all of the
purges and purge films to inflate the kill numbers of The Purge to keep this event going
for the near, and possibly, distant future.
Another twist, or not really a twist, is why exactly the government or The Founding Fathers
wanted to start doing these Purges in the first place.
We find out the U.S. is in economic disarray and the best and easiest way for the founding
fathers to remedy this issue is to dramatically reduce the U.S. population.
And how do you do that, yep, via an annual Purge.
To put an even more sadistic twist to the government's plans, the founding fathers are
more interested in killing off minorities, the poor, and the disabled.
A little theory I have is that , with The First Purge following a black woman, and the
other Purges films following white people, this may indicate the government was successful
with its plans.
Or, the franchise's producers were just not willing to cast anyone besides a white
male lead up to this point.
Reading the synopsis and watching the trailers, you may think The First Purge has plenty of
timely and important messages, and is an overall vital film during this tumultuous time period
in the world and U.S.
In theory that's true, but as I've said earlier in the video, the film's message
gets lost in a shuffle of poor execution.
As you can glance from the reviews, The First Purge is not very well received.
The Purge franchise has always lacked substance, which is so, so important when attempting
to pull off such a controversial and gruesome premise.
The films have always been interested in delivering violence, carnage, and cheap and lazy satire.
Sometimes this does work, with 2014's The Purge Anarchy being the real standout here.
That film knew what it was and what it wanted to do from the get go.
Sure, we get those heavy handed messages, but it's a fun thrill ride.
Unlike The First Purge, which is in my opinion, trying way too hard to being an important
viewing experience, a be all end all, a timely film that should move the conversation forward
about the state of the United States and the world.
But the problem is, it's a Purge film first and foremost.
It fails to let go of the franchise's lesser and even best qualities.
It's not a refreshing reinvention of the formula, which is a shame because it's a
prequel after all with new leads and a forceful but actually effective marketing campaign.
The best way to describe The First Purge is that it's frustrating, because it could
have been so, so much more.
Again, the big revelation in The First Purge is that this event was created by the government
to kill off marginalized groups all in an effort to save money, and we find out most
of the sadistic people participating in these events are government-bought militias and
hate groups.
That's an insane and brave premise to tackle, but when you watch the actual movie, it never
feels like that.
And that's an incredibly huge problem to say the least.
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