Unfortunately the characters are so poorly written that the political provocations hang in the air like birthday balloons.

| Mar 4, 2020

It's efficiently done. It's quite grueling. And what I like about it is that central idea... It's solid.

| Aug 28, 2018

The Purge films are B-movies, and so this ultraviolence mostly works, though its social commentary is served a little too rare to stomach easily.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 7, 2018

The ideas evaporate and the gun violence, ultimately, is all that remains. Which, perhaps, is deliberate, and very American, but deadening all the same.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 6, 2018

It's really direct, and it's really damning. I like this movie a lot.

| Original Score: 7.6/10 | Jul 6, 2018

It is surprisingly powerful and hard to watch.

| Original Score: 7.4/10 | Jul 6, 2018

My expectations going in was that we were getting a more mature explanation of how this really began, but it's just another Purge movie.

| Original Score: D+ | Jul 6, 2018

The First Purge is preachy in both dialogue and plotting, and devoid of the ludicrous extremeness that might energize-or complicate-its politics. Just as frustratingly, it lacks any hint of suspense.

| Jul 5, 2018

The First Purge is still ultimately an old-fashioned B picture but it has more of an edge than its predecessors.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 5, 2018

Despite their significant flaws, what the Purge movies have shown us-what many movies with humble budgets, made to thrill rather than to win prestige respect, show us-is that genre fare is a ready-made social mirror.

| Jul 5, 2018

With a sharper focus on race and plenty of real-life horrors to draw from, Gerard McMurray brings a fresh perspective to this splashily satirical prequel. If only its action was as punchy as its ideas.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 5, 2018

Unfortunately, despite a strong start and some action-movie pleasures throughout, "The First Purge" is a little too heavy handed, routine and ridden with logic problems to make its points stick.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 5, 2018

The First Purge pulls no punches.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 5, 2018

Yes, it's a sick idea, but with each passing year we seem to inch ever closer to feeling like we might one day have one of these things for real.

| Jul 5, 2018

An unabashedly violent B-movie throwback, the sort director John Carpenter used to make, with moments that resonate with real life.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 5, 2018

Maybe it's forgettable, but it could not be more of its time.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 5, 2018

For the first two-thirds or so of the movie, the scares are lacking.

| Original Score: C+ | Jul 5, 2018

The most terrifying thought is that in both this fictional movie franchise and in real life, the worst is yet to come.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 5, 2018

I've honestly found plenty to like about all of The Purge pictures, even this one.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 4, 2018

God help me, I'm torn down the middle, but that exposed middle is where the horror genre plants its seeds.

| Jul 4, 2018