4.5/10
I had heard the sequel righted a lot of wrongs of the first one. It takes a multi-character approach: instead of focusing on just one family's "Purge night", it focuses on three different groups - a mom and her daughter locked down for the night, a couple stuck out in the streets when the Purge starts, and a mysterious-looking badass who appears to be out to do some Purging of his own. This is a good start but the way these three strands all collide through various, increasingly implausible circumstances, not to mention the presence of some kind of anti-Purge night/counter-terrorist group thrown in the mix, falls even more flat in the end. The movie mostly ditches its horror film roots in favor of brassy action sequences, as the five end up outside together during the Purge and have to band together to survive. There's all manner of boring tropes to be found in their group, from the mouthy teenager to the badass with a heart of gold, and I was mostly bored myself throughout. There's an interesting (if, again, very silly) premise behind the Purge movies and it's not hard to feel like these two stabs haven't quite hit the mark yet. But the idea certainly lends itself to a lot of various scenarios (like the Saw franchise) so I won't be surprise if there's a few more tries at it before the brand is put to rest for good. Maybe one of those will get it right.
