41
Metascore
33 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 83The PlaylistDrew TaylorThe PlaylistDrew TaylorThe Purge manages to be smart, scary, and subversive.
- 70Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlVillage VoiceAlan ScherstuhlAs in so many Hollywood spectacles, the message and medium are at hopeless odds... Still, the set-up is arresting, the domestic scenes well observed and acted, and the payoffs involving that Roomba toy excellent. Also, a late-film twist isn't a surprise, exactly, but it is delicious.
- 68Film.comFilm.comThere’s gold in the premise of “The Purge” and its dismissal of subtlety. But like the residents of its world, when given the opportunity, it drops restraint and goes for blood.
- 60Total FilmNeil SmithTotal FilmNeil SmithJames DeMonaco’s blood-splattered thriller begins well before expiring slowly from multiple improbabilities.
- 50The Hollywood ReporterNeil YoungThe Hollywood ReporterNeil YoungWhat should be a clammy exercise in claustrophobic, queasy tension becomes, in the hands of writer/director James DeMonaco, an underpowered compendium of over-familiar scare tactics and sledgehammer-subtle social satire.
- 50VarietyLeslie FelperinVarietyLeslie FelperinThe film’s thudding shocks and predictability dull its edge.
- 40The GuardianThe GuardianThe film doesn't develop its one good idea so much as stumble around in the dark with it for 85 minutes, crashing noisily into the furniture.
- 40Time Out LondonNigel FloydTime Out LondonNigel FloydThe film's would-be subversive ideas about the kneejerk appeal of social violence get lost in the mix.
- 40Time OutJoshua RothkopfTime OutJoshua RothkopfThe filmmakers are too much in love with their made-up holiday to observe it to the fullest.