This was a huge movie weekend, it was probably the biggest movie drop since the theaters reopened, but not all of these were in the theaters. Boss Baby, The Forever Purge, Zola, and The Summer of Soul were all released into the theaters, whereas No Sudden Move and The Tomorrow War were both released onto their respective streaming platforms, HBO Max and Amazon, and amazingly they have all been decent movies. I had been hard pressed to even see one good new release over the course of a weekend recently, so hopefully this trend will continue as normalcy continues to return. I will mainly be focused on The Forever Purge, but that is not to detract from the other movies. (Spoilers ahead)
The Forever Purge mainly focuses in on the people of a wealthy ranch in Texas, the family that owns it, and the people who work on it. There is some initial tension between the owners of the farm and the workers, this seems to be racial tension between the Hispanic workers and the rich white owners, but there is also a hidden tension between the white workers and the owners. Everyone makes it through the night of the purge without a hiccup, but the following morning, the trouble really begins. The white farm hands start a revolt, and the Hispanic workers save the owners, and end up joining forces. As it turns out, this was not the only place where the purge continued after it was supposed to be over, thus the title being The Forever Purge. The group supporting the forever purge are mainly all racists or against the rich elite. So as the country is burning the crew tries to make their way to Mexico, a "safer" place.
The main theme of all the Purge movies is division, the first three are all more class based. The rich have the money to either create a safe enough bunker to never have to leave from the house and be safe, and then there are the other set of rich people that treat it like The Most Dangerous Game and buy the best guns, armor, and vehicles, so that they can go out safely and kill as they please. In the more political Purge movie, they discussed about how the purge helped get rid of the more undesirables of society. So that way the government does not have to give out as much welfare and unemployment because those people will either get killed because they do not have the weapons to survive, a shelter to hide, or they are more willing to participate because it might help them get the resources to live. This theme does continue in this film, but the class division is more of an undercurrent to the race element. The ranch hands come after the owners because of all the money they have, and how little they pay them. The ranch hand ends up shooting the owner because they were going to take over the ranch.
This brings us to the race element. So there was the initial race element on the ranch between the white people and the Hispanics, but these ideas were more wide spread than initial shown. Once the purge continued, many of those fighters were rallied around the idea of getting rid of the Hispanics (remember this is taking place in Texas so that is a large portion of the residents). There was strong hateful language throughout, either being broadcast from a armored van, or when the group comes into direct contact with members of the Forever Purge. It was interesting to see the racial difference between the white ranch hands and the Hispanics, because the white helpers were clearly upset enough to revolt, where the Hispanics were just grateful to be in America and have a job working. It is all a matter of perspective. The way that they show the Hispanic community in the movie, and how they are all willing to help each other out is interesting to see, as well as up lifting. They also brought the Native Americans into it as well.
The whole film also had a storming the capital vibe to it. Much of the language they used was remarkably like that of what was heard on the news during the storming. They had the debate on whether it was planned or just spur of the moment. They honestly might have just taken real news coverage sound bites from the storming and used it in the film. The movie also gave off similar vibes to the riots that occurred post George Floyd. So many of the images seemed truly relevant to the times, more so than any of the previous films. In the other films, they use a ton of political imagery in their advertisements that were like Trump's political advertisements. It is funny that to sell the movies they use the far right-wing imagery and ideology, but the whole movie attacks those ideas.
Another one of the funny aspects of this movie was the opening of the borders of Mexico and Canada. Clearly the U.S and Mexico have had a serious conflict over the border and letting people over, so it seems laughable that Mexico would just open their border for people to take refuge when the U.S will not do the same. It is also laughable because Northern Mexico has a serious problem with violent crime from all the cartels. So it would be like leaving one area of anarchy and going to another. In some places in Mexico, it can be just as bad as the purge. I also do not see Canada opening the borders to the U.S in that situation, especially considering they are not willing to reopen the border right now when COVID is on a serious decline. It just does not seem likely that either country would be ready and willing to let people from the U.S in their country, but it works as plot device to help move the story.
The whole movie was tense basically from start to end, danger was always lingering around because everyone was a threat, so while watching even as the viewer you could not let your guard down. It was like getting a shot of adrenaline that lasted an hour and a half. Then when leaving the movie, I still just had an uneasy feeling walking past all the people in the mall and driving home, I just expected something to go wrong, which to me is a sign of a good movie.
Overall, I found this movie enjoyable. From start to finish it kept me really interested. It was an excellent blend of action and horror. The action scenes were far better than any of the other action movies that I have seen this year like Nobody, No Remorse, and F9. It did not create tension as well as A Quiet Place II, but it would be hard to do tension as well as that movie. I give the Forever Purge 4 Stars, go see it! It is not going to win any awards, but for what it is, it is great.
Boss Baby II was funny and lighthearted. It also did the whole family reconciliation thing way better than F9, and it was funnier than F9. It was probably 15 minutes too long, but it will keep the kid entertained. By far the best part of the movie were the scenes where the red headed baby starred.
The Tomorrow War was Chris Pratt massacring a bunch of gross aliens while trying to save the world and his daughter. For what it was, it was fairly good, they tried to force some moments of levity in that were hit or miss. Overall, Chris Pratt is a person I want to watch in movies so I will take it, just do not try to think about all the time travel too much, it might confuse you and take you away from the real point of the movie, to show awesome action sequences of killing aliens.
No Sudden Move on HBO Max is part crime thriller part heist. It has a good cast, and it kept me very entertained. I always know it is a good movie when I stop my rolling and stretching and just watch the movie. So I would endorse watching this as well. It has a decent attack on capitalism and monopolies, but the tension is what really keeps the movie interesting.
The Summer of Soul was a documentary about the Harlem Cultural Festival that took place in 1969. It showed the black cultural awakening of America that had been forgotten. The music was excellent, and they told the story about how this festival was needed in this time of hopelessness. It is also an interesting watch around the 4th of July because typically we are celebrating America, this also brings to light the darker side that Black people were going through.
New Rankings:
The Forever Purge: 4 Stars
Boss Baby 2: 3 Stars
The Tomorrow War: 3.5 Stars
No Sudden Moves: 4 Stars
Summer of Soul: 3 Stars
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