The Purge: Anarchy

The Purge: Anarchy is a significant build on the first film.

The first suffered from a very low budget and a poor delivery on an exciting premise (in my opinion it's a fantastic idea for a movie, ridiculous and not realistic, sure, but Hunger Games-esque.)

This rights all the original's wrongs by focussing on a set of different characters with different motives who meet in the middle of the chaos and also exposing some of the truth behind the politics. Everything here just makes sense, every set piece builds from the last and every story arc reaches a logical conclusion.

It's an Aliens style action sequel with the occasional scare (although a slight reliance on silent then REALLY LOUD jumpy bits detracts from the overall tension).

Like the Hunger Games this is the 'cracks-starting-to-appear-in-the-formula' movie and this series, potentially, has a long way to go.

Full blown revolution and a prequel based 'how-did-it-get-to-this' style film would be two things I personally would like to see.

Really worth a watch whether you've seen the original or not. Don't write it off.

4 stars ****