About the film (courtesy of Universal Pictures):
Adela (Ana de la Reguera) and her husband Juan (Tenoch Huerta) live in Texas, where Juan is working as a ranch hand for the wealthy Tucker family. Juan impresses the Tucker patriarch, Caleb (Will Patton), but that fuels the jealous anger of Caleb’s son, Dylan (Josh Lucas). On the morning after The Purge, a masked gang of killers attacks the Tucker family—including Dylan’s wife (Cassidy Freeman), and his sister (Leven Rambin), forcing both families to band together and fight back as the country spirals into chaos and the United States begins to disintegrate around them.
Hot-button topics seem to go hand in hand with The Purge franchises since making its debut in 2013. The films (and television series), thanks to their creative production teams, have pulled real world headlines into the plots, giving audiences a little something extra to chew on during their cinematic experiences. Sometimes subtly, while other times quite overtly, these subplots often raises the ire of viewers one way or another. The Forever Purge aims to bring these feelings to forefront while Universal Pictures, Blumhouse Productions and Platinum Dunes are hoping that consumers keep investing in these fictional, but not entirely impossible to believe, stories.
Just as past entries have done, the initial portion of The Forever Purge is all about introducing the characters, setting a certain tone and assisting in giving the audience something to emotionally invest in. These movies are typically of the slow burn variety before ramping up into a free-for-all of battles and bloodshed. You can expect more of the same in the latest offering.
As the franchise has progressed, the landscape the films has expanded. If you remember, the original takes place mostly in one residence. The Forever Purge goes multistate as well as international. Who knows, maybe a couple of movies down the road, they’ll take the Fast and Furious approach and start shooting for stars…or at least the moon. The ever-growing setting expansion speaks to the idea that the world is watch what the United States is doing and it won’t be long before The Purge goes global.
With just over 100 minutes of runtime, director Everardo Gout is tasked with finding a balance between joining the segments of all of the moving parts, making sure the audience feels a connection and finally quenching their appetite for destruction. The area where Gout fails to deliver is in getting his hooks into the audiences heartstrings. While each of them are given reasons for you to want them to make it to the end of this story, you can’t help but feel like Ivan Drago’s character from Rocky IV (1985), “If he dies, he dies.” That pretty much sums up the feelings on all of the various characters in The Forever Purge.
From a pure entertainment perspective, once The Forever Purge gets moving, you’ll start to have a little fun with all of the chaos and carnage. The characters, especially the “Purgers” are interesting enough. And with disappearance of the hard-stop deadline of the Purge to end after 12 hours, that does add a bit of intrigue to things. You have to pace yourself and your expectations a bit differently, kind of like competing in a 1,500 meter race versus a 100 meter dash.
The Forever Purge is far from flawless, but it does have a fun factor to it due to having a larger playing field for a longer time. These new additions along with different ways they mirror current events, should provide audiences with just enough to mildly enjoy this latest entry. I do feel that enough was done, albeit not by much, to warrant yet another sequel. You can catch this one only in theaters starting this evening.
