“The Purge: Election Year” is a scurrilously effective pop rabble-rouser – a movie that’s been built to get you riled, and does,” praises Owen Gleiberman of Variety.
En route to its worldwide debut July 6, Universal Pictures’ suspense thriller “The Purge: Election Year” has amassed a slew of positive reviews from influential critics, underlining the film’s provocative themes and entertainment value.
“It’s nice to see an action movie take more than a passing interest in where America is at the moment, and then exaggerating that moment into the realm of shrewd exploitation,” writes Michael Phillips of The Washington Post.
For David Fear of Rolling Stone, “[T]he film’s real currency is simply a nonpartisan free-floating us-vs-them anger, in which a put-upon underclass finally gets payback and a one-percenter upper class finally gets its comeuppance. You can be a pissed-off Tea Partier or an Occupy advocate and find something here to stoke your fat cat hatred; either way, catharsis is doled out not in a dusk-til-dawn homicidal free-for all but two harmless hours in a theater.”
This sentiment is echoed by Newsday’s Rafer Guzman who shares, “Critics have largely dismissed the `Purge’ movies as pandering action-horror fare (which they are) full of bargain-basement social allegory (which is true). Nevertheless, [director James] DeMonaco deserves credit for tackling issues of race, income inequality and government complicity with admirable bluntness. There are no nuanced metaphors in a `Purge’ movie.”
Indeed, “Writer-director James DeMonaco’s third chapter in the thrill-kill vigilante franchise is the best and pulpiest Purge yet,” assures Entertainment Weekly’s Chris Nashawaty. “As a rousingly tense, John Carpenter-esque thriller, `The Purge: Election Year’ is surprisingly effective.”
“It’s a grim world of nasty pleasures here, the kind you won’t feel guilty about unless it all somehow comes true in 2017. In the meantime, cheer on a violent film about righteous non-violence today, why don’t you? There’ll be plenty of time to be sorry about it later,” writes Dave White of The Wrap.
Expanding the universe introduced in the hit franchise that electrified the culture and earned $200 million at the worldwide box office, “The Purge: Election Year” reveals the next terrifying chapter that occurs over 12 hours of annual lawlessness sanctioned by the New Founders of America to keep this country great.
It’s been two years since Leo Barnes (Frank Grillo) stopped himself from a regrettable act of revenge on Purge Night. Now serving as head of security for Senator Charlie Roan (Elizabeth Mitchell), his mission is to protect her in a run for president and survive the annual ritual that targets the poor and innocent. But when a betrayal forces them onto the streets of D.C. on the one night when no help is available, they must stay alive until dawn…or both be sacrificed for their sins against the state.
Once again returning to collaborate with franchise creator James DeMonaco on “The Purge: Election Year” are the series’ producers: Blumhouse Productions’ Jason Blum (“Insidious” and “Ouija” series, “The Visit”), Platinum Dunes partners Michael Bay, Brad Fuller and Andrew Form (“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” series, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”), and writer/director DeMonaco’s longtime production partner, Sébastien K. Lemercier (“Assault on Precinct 13”).
Opening across the Philippines on July 06, “The Purge: Election Year” is distributed by United International Pictures through Columbia Pictures.
