9 Biggest Movies Coming Out In July 2018

The Purge was always an interesting concept from the beginning, but the first film never really took enough advantage of it and was ultimately a generic home invasion thriller with some iffy political commentary.

The sequel Anarchy was a much-needed improvement, turning into an entertaining throwback to 1980s dystopian action movies in the vein of Escape from New York and The Running Man. The third film Election Year was basically more of the same; not a backtrack on the first film, but not innovating much either.

The currently untitled fourth film will apparently be a prequel, focusing on the events that led to the implementation of The Purge. This is a decision that could make or break the franchise, as its main obstacle thus far has been trying to balance the holes in its concept.

Telling a story about how The Purge came about could be a great chance to iron over the logic issues and retroactively improve on the series as a whole, but equally it could just create more problems.

Whatever the case, if there is anyway to somehow include Frank Grillo's Leo Barnes into the action, it would be a plus. Sure, his character served his purpose in Anarchy and Election Year, but he's also the main element that made those movies an improvement on the original. If there is not a logical way to bring Barnes into the prequel, the series will at least need a presence of that caliber to keep it interesting.