The First Purge (2018)★★★☆☆

Well, it’s usually not a great sign when I only realize halfway through a movie that I’ve seen it before. Especially one with Marisa Tomei!

And yeah, it’s not a great movie. The pacing and tension-building is all over the place, the plot is predictable (and logically questionable), and much of the violence feels too over-the-top to be genuinely scary. And there’s no Frank Grillo.

But the acting is good, and the character-building in the film is good enough where I actually find myself caring about the main cast and what happens to them. And some of the over-the-top violent scenes are genuinely fun.

This certainly isn’t my favorite of the Purge films, but it’s not terrible. And it has a pretty damn satisfying ending.