Great concept - poor follow-thru

Rating: 3/10 (28 May 2016)

The Purge - how excited I was after reading about you prior to your release. I loved the idea - an American where once a year for 12 hours there are no laws, allowing citizens the chance to "purge" themselves of any evil inside. I thought I'd be in for a zombie-like, apocalyptic movie only with breathing humans doing the killing en masse. It sounded terrifying. What I got instead was 85 minutes of a weird Ethan Hawke character defending his family inside his home. The film never leaves that stupid home. The whole concept is only a device used so that this "home invasion" film can continue on without the intervention of police. Because of this, the film actually ended up being LESS creative than even the most basic films of this genre. There was no unique room setup as in "Panic Room", nor was there the frightening "why are you doing this" dread as in "The Strangers". No, this movie turned out to be 85 minutes of Ethan Hawke fighting against a group of young, educated home invaders who have been given the freedom to perform their acts by the Purge holiday.
This movie stunk. The characters are totally unlikable, to the point where I just hoped they all got killed.
I gave this 3 stars mainly for the cinematography, which was good at times. Other than that, this is a waste of time and one of the most poorly executed films in recent memory