The First Purge

Director Gerard McMurray
Starring Y’lan Noel, Lex Scott Davis, Joivan Wade
Rated MA
Score 2.5/6

America’s third political party, the New Founding Fathers of America, comes to power and conducts an experiment: no laws for 12 hours on Staten Island. No one has to stay on the island, but $5,000 is given to anyone who does.

Is it ever a good sign, that a film franchise throws in a prequel chapter? No, but only if it’s a stand-alone movie. I’m not really sure if there is anything left for this franchise to do, except for maybe somehow bridge the game between the chronological game between the first movie released in 2013 and this one. I suppose that’s what they are going to try to do with the recent start of the TV series.
As action movies goes The First Purge is decidedly average bordering on the forgettable. I got the impression that The First Purge was coasting on the franchise’s reputation and it really did not try to be its own movie.
It was good to see that James DeMonaco wrote the screenplay as he did for the previous movies for The First Purge but it would have been good to also see him return to the director’s chair as well.
I suppose the only good thing about The First Purge was Y’lan Noel’s performance. This was Noel’s second role in a feature film and he carried himself well throughout the movie.

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