What a horrible day for movies! Both of these were movies that either hubby or I wanted to see in theaters but it just didn’t happen for one reason or another. I am pretty glad we waited for Red Box because honestly they were a waste of $1.20 too! Let’s get down to it then. WARNING: SPOILERS ABOUND FROM HERE ON OUT!

 

Pacific Rim, a movie about……Transformers. No wait, that’s not it. It’s about…….Iron Man. No wait that isn’t it either. It’s about…..Godzilla. No that’s not right either. It’s the sequel to…..Cloverfield. No, but that is getting closer I think. Actually it’s something of a combination of all of these. And I still have no idea what the whole point of the movie was supposed to be about! I think at the beginning of the movie they talked about dropping a bomb into the portal between dimensions, and ultimately I think that’s how it ended so that must be it. Anyway, alien creatures are attacking our world and so humans created Jaegers to combat them. Apparently they want to colonize our world and they first tried to millions of years ago, we know them as dinosaurs. But the climate was not hospitable at the time. But now with all the global warming and awful things we’ve done to the planet it’s perfect for a take over.

This movie was just soooooooo cliche. Star pilot loses his partner and falls off the map to become an average Joe guy. The young ambitious newbie who struggles with horrors from the past. The general whose program is about to get shut down and has to go seek out the seasoned drop out. When combined with the ambitious newbie they form an unstoppable team who will singlehandedly defeat the evil thing! Yeah, I know. That sounds like every other action movie on earth, and it is exactly like this one too.

Don’t get me wrong, not everything about this movie was bad. The effects were very good. The monsters looked awesome. The color scheme of the movie was very engaging. But that was about all it had going for it. It was so boring! I have never been more bored in my life. The characters were bad, the story was bad, the ending was bad, it was just bad! I feel like I wasted 132 minutes of my life that I can’t get back.

This movie just pissed me off, it made me so angry. The first reason that it made me angry is that it has such a great premise. And that premise was squandered so thoroughly. In fact, I am pretty sure that I came up with a better idea to execute this premise for a novel than this movie was. Normally I would be concerned about Ethan Hawke because he is just not a very good actor. But I had no problem with him in this movie. Here are my issues:

1. The socialist propaganda in this movie was constant. And I do mean from beginning to end. One of the characters actually says at one point, “You know that this filth is only here in order for our pleasure and purpose.” He was speaking of poor people and homeless people, who of course are only around for the rich people to exploit. That was just one of dozens upon dozens of examples I could come up with.

2. There were HUGE logic fails in this movie. Such as, The Purge was instituted because the poverty and crime problems in the country were so rampant that this was seen as an alternative. But, the rich people don’t seem to be affected by the purge much, they can just get a security system and it all mostly stays in in poor areas of town…which is what they were trying to fix right? Fail.

3. Massive world building problems. According to this movie in 2022 the US has gotten a brand new overhaul in which was decided that for one 12 hour period a year all crime is now legal and people have just accepted this as part of life. That’s only 9 years in the future. The movie gives us no information about why this change took place, how it took place, who was involved, or anything about what happened! Either you need to set this 100 years in the future or give me some damned details about how this happens less than a decade from now.

4. This movie has zero knowledge about recurrent criminals or basic human nature. This movie assumes that all humans inherently have a desire to commit violent acts and murder people. So they decide to give this a socially acceptable outlet and then the violent urges have been purged from everyone’s system for another year. First, most humans don’t secret want to murder people if only it weren’t illegal. And second, criminals who do want to murder people are not going to restrict themselves to once a year.

5. Why was all the crime that took place during this purge murder? No one was interested in robbery, arson, rape, nothing else besides killing? Um, okay. Personally I think I’d head to the nearest bank and get myself some cash. But then I must not be one of these humans that inherently wants to kill I guess.

6. More logic fail. Has anyone considered that after all this pillaging and murdering that the emergency services is going to be overloaded? Is that really a good idea? Guess everyone in law enforcement and emergency services is going to be working overtime.

7. Now for some character fail. The characters in this were idiots. The boyfriend of the girl sneaks into her house before the lockdown for the purge, he says that he’s there to talk to her dad when he can’t run away. Um, listen dude, the guy hates you. Have you really thought through this plan? He can KILL YOU and suffer no repercussions, so why exactly did this seem like a good plan? Oh wait, that’s right because you were going to kill him. Because killing your girlfriend’s father is such a great way to endear her to you forever!

8. More logic fail. If thousands of people are being murdered in every town in the US every year, how exactly is the population sustaining itself. One character actually said that just one street was like “a sea of bodies”. Right, and again I say, how is the population faring well at all?

9. More character fail. Idiot son lets a stranger into the house and they become targets of the people who wish to kill that stranger. Dad originally decides, yeah let’s turn over the stranger to these guys and they’ll leave us alone. They hunt down the stranger (who is black by the way, being hunted by white kids from the prep school and is constantly referred to as “filth”, “homeless swine” and other insulting terms) and get into a tussle. At one point he is screaming at his wife to stick her finger in his wounds to distract him and make him stop fighting. Then the guy finally gives in and says “alright, I get it. Save your family and give me to them.” And all of a sudden he thinks, “no I don’t want to do that! We’re going to save this man and fight until the purge ends!” YOU WERE JUST STICKING FINGERS IN HIS WOUND TO STOP HIS STRUGGLING TWO SECONDS AGO!

10. More logic fail. If all these people are getting killed, who is handling the inevitably large number of orphans? Do they go into a government system? Are they left to fend for themselves? How is the government handling the influx of bodies on one hand, the declining population with another, and an exponential number of orphans with a third hand?

11. Final logic fail. I am expected to believe that for one night everyone can run around killing each other and then the very next day go back to normal and socialize as if nothing happened. It wouldn’t work that way. People would be scared and suspicious of everyone, because they might be coming to kill you on the next purge night if you trust them too much.

11. Okay, I thought of another logic fail that I just can’t let go. Why does this movie assume that most violence is stranger violence? Last time I checked, if you are going to be murdered the vast majority of the time it will be someone who is close to you. So is locking yourself behind steel doors and walls with your family for 12 hours really a good idea? Seems more likely they’d be the ones to kill you than some stranger outside.

I just can’t get over this movie. It made me so angry! I am going to write my better idea right now to make me feel better.