I believe I have said before that I'm not a fan of this film series that started with 2013's "The Purge." As a horror fan I have to say that while the premise fits right in with horror films, it never really goes far enough with the genre for my taste. It's essentially just insane sociopaths stealing or killing, with only mild hints at other criminal activities. Pretty tame for what should be a balls to the wall gonzo premise. As expected "The First Purge" falls into that description as well. Action thriller second, disturbing horror third. Wait, what happened to "first?"
Along with the action thriller and disturbing horror aspects that this franchise revolves around, the other element is the social political commentary of the premise. Unlike the previous films that only superficially plays around with the thematic commentary, this installment surprisingly does a better job at it. So yeah, social political commentary first. There's actually some world building here and scenes specifically dedicated to the reasoning behind The Purge. It's still not completely perfect, but I really appreciated the time they spent on the subject matter.
Fans of the franchise might actually be disappointed with this installment, because it takes a while before the Purge starts in this story. If you're here just for the crazy killing, then this may not be for you. There are tons of death in this story of course, but more in the action film variety, than the horror kind. Speaking of horror, I did like the little gimmick they had involving glow in the dark contact lenses, that successfully looks creepy in the scenes they were used for.
At this point, I'm ready to go so far and say that "The First Purge" not only acts as a nice prequel to the series, but it just may be the best installment to the franchise. Hold your horses though, because that isn't saying much. The characters are still made up of cliches and plot tropes, stupid things still happen for the sake of convenience, plus the final conclusion to the story is just so very unsatisfying. But hey, at least they showed signs of improvement here.
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