We can pick away at the merits of last year’s thriller The Purge (my big problem was that the characters had to do stupid things to keep the plot moving), but the movie definitely had a wild idea. For one night every year, the U.S. government sanctions lawlessness, allowing citizens to purge their baser instincts and thereby creating peace the remaining 364 days of the calendar.
That film was set mostly inside a single well-barricaded home. The sequel, The Purge: Anarchy, lets the concept out in the streets and goes crazy with it. It’s a big improvement on the original. The same writer-director, James DeMonaco, is at the helm, but it’s as though the looser format allowed for more inventiveness.