Am another person who didn't care at all for 'The Purge' from 2013. It wasn't completely unwatchable with a couple of reasonable performances and decent production values but was so tension and suspense-free and full of irritating characters, illogical character behaviours, a dull pace, a cheesy script and tired clichés.
Had seen and heard numerous times people saying that 'The Purge: Anarchy' was a much better film. Will admit that due to disliking 'The Purge' so much, part of me was very unsure as to whether to watch 'The Purge: Anarchy' and very nearly didn't watch it. To be fair though, decided to watch it and found it not to be a waste of time at all, it is a second film that stands well on its own and doesn't try to be more of the same and instead be different from the predecessor. Am in complete agreement with those saying that this is the far superior film, while thinking that it was still flawed and not too great.
'The Purge: Anarchy' has a lot of good things. The story execution is much better this time round, it's more eventful, is tighter paced, is intriguing and has some creepy atmosphere and suspense. The acting is also better, with a formidable Frank Grillo leading the cast with aplomb.
Less irritating characters here too, generally the characters are easier to relate to and are not as shallow, their behaviour also makes more sense and induces less face palms. There are unsettling moments here, some fun ones and some intriguing ones. It's assuredly directed and the slick and gritty visual look remains, its effort to be larger in scale in terms of ideas and narrative and have more going on is laudable.
However, 'The Purge: Anarchy' is still heavily flawed. The dialogue is still enough to make one cringe and just sounds so fatigued, stilted and without any imagination. The social commentary and rich vs poor aspects are dealt with in a heavy-handed way and the effects are shoddy and do look fake.
Character development is very flimsy and 'The Purge: Anarchy' still has a few characters that frustrate (especially the annoying Cali, with Zoe Soul giving the only "bad" performance), not much imaginative or surprising and the clichés every bit as tired. There are some parts that feel like they're stretched out too far, the ending doesn't finish the film with a bang as much as one would hope.
Reading those criticisms, one would think that 'The Purge: Anarchy' is a bad film. Unlike 'The Purge', it is not. It's problematic and is not a great film, but overall it's decent enough and has a good deal in its favour with things that were bad previously corrected. 6/10 Bethany Cox
