The Purge Reviews
Willamette Week
A sheep in Straw Dogs' clothing.
Full Review
| Original Score: C-
National Post
It would like to be high concept, maybe even darkly philosophical, but it mistakes recognizing questions with trying to understand them, and then it clubs you in the face with that recognition with twice the zeal of any of its purging characters.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/4
Austin American-Statesman
The satirical social observations about class warfare and the elimination of poverty by killing the poor are really just an excuse to get the motley crew of sociopaths into the house.
Full Review
| Original Score: C
Top CriticNo real answers are provided by writer-director James DeMonaco. He simply presents this bizarre dystopian future, and the audience is left to take it or leave it.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/4
The Ooh Tray
DeMonaco's movie lacks the courage to explore the possibilities suggested by its stoner argument conceit.
Suburban Journals of St. Louis
As it stands now it is merely a movie that desperately wants to say something important and profound, but the best it can come up with is "Boo!"
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/5
AV Club
The Purge suffers from BioShock Syndrome: Its survive-at-all-costs plot and anti-libertarian slant are incompatible.
Full Review
| Original Score: C
Daily Film Fix
The Purge is satire done so broadly that the audience might forget that it is trying to comment on something with weight and meaning.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/10
Movie Nation
Heavy handed satire of a violent, haves vs. have-nots America remade in the NRA and Tea Party's image.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1.5/4
Seven Days
DeMonaco makes his point, but it's one that only resonates in the improbable scenario he's concocted.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/10
When critics bemoan the dumbing down of movies, they're talking about stuff like The Purge.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/4
Movieline
The premise is intriguing but the movie is pretty disgusting. If it really had something to say about violence in our society okay, but it's just there for entertainment so beware.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/5
Three Movie Buffs
A mediocre home invasion film whose implausible central plot device undercuts whatever point it was trying to make.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
BET.com
'The Purge' purges every trite home invasion scenario. That said, audiences will enjoy 'The Purge' more than critics. We're suckers for screeching villains, big explosions and victims getting their gory revenge.
Full Review
| Original Score: C+
The great premise in "The Purge" - and it is a great premise, while being no "Hunger Games" - is squandered on a few levels.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Screen International
A dark allegory that never justifies its central conceit, dooming all that follows.
St. Paul Pioneer Press
"The Purge" is nothing more than a vigilante revenge fantasy -- one group of unpleasant people shooting at another group of unpleasant people.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/4
Grolsch Film Works
it is not long before the film's high concept is beleaguered by an aggressive incursion of standard genre plotting
Tri-City Herald
The dumbest premise in the history of Earth.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/5
