"Election Year" Is the Best Purge Movie So Far

The Trump-alikes you'll see in "The Purge: Election Year."

By Lauren Yoshiko

This third installment finally delivers the fleshed out storyline the Purge series deserves, but our violent reality offscreen makes this fiction a lot less appealing.

Veteran director James DeMonaco this time broadens the story to show us the world that thought up this one day a year when you can commit any crime. Protesters blame the New Founding Fathers for creating the Purge to wipe out the homeless, and Sen. Charlie Roan steps up as an anti-Purge presidential hopeful with a target on her back.

The story would be more entertaining if the script exercised greater subtlety. Instead, one-dimensional characters spell out health insurance reform and Trump rhetoric, combined with nightmarish imagery of murder tourists from Germany and sadistic girl gangs waving AK-47s.

Election Year is the best of the trilogy in terms of visuals and concept, but the idea of the Purge itself is losing edge as real-life mass shootings screen regularly.

Rated R.

Critic's Grade: C-.

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