Rampage is the newest creature feature to hit theaters. Loosely based on the video game of the same name, the movie stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson who teams up with a giant albino gorilla that turns into a raging monster of enormous size following rogue science experiments. It’s a fun popcorn flick with not much thought and lots of explosions.
We follow primatologist Davis Okoye (The Rock), a man who was the head of an anti-poaching unit, now working at the San Diego Zoo. His friend George, a beloved albino silverback gorilla, has been infected with a mysterious experiment that turns him into a giant, aggressive beast. He has help from a discredited genetic engineer, Dr. Kate Caldwell (Naomie Harris), who used to work for the evil corporation that development the science behind the infection that also infects a wolf and a crocodile. Together with a government agent, Harvey Russell (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), they must stop the three rampaging monsters before they destroy Chicago.
On its surface this is a stupid movie. “Giant monster running amok” has been a creature feature/sci-fi trope for years. Hell, it was the 1950s drive-in bread and butter. But as special effects technology advanced, so did the type of movies. But at the core, it’s still just about giant monsters destroying cities and eating people. And that’s why we go. And then you add The Rock to the mix, and you have one hell of entertaining movie even if it’s not great.
Dwayne Johnson is just full of charisma and you can’t help wanting to watch him. No matter if he’s fighting a giant wolf, a nature disaster or Vin Diesel, he’s just fun. Period. He’s just the coolest ape doctor ever. You know it, and so does he. He’s all funny and charming from the get go and no matter what happens in the movie you want him to save his friend George.
He works well off of Naomie Harris’s discredited genetic scientist. She has been fired and become a laughing stock in her field due to the lies and twirling mustache type villainy from the evil the corporation run by Claire Wyden (Malin Akerman), who has a real knack for playing evil. We’ve seen both these archetypes in creature features before so there’s not much depth to their characters per se. Despite that they both turn in worthy performances and bring their A-game even if what they say and do is absolutely ridiculous.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan is a delight to watch in this. Team him up with The Rock in anything and I’ll watch it. They have some great back and forth with solid comic timing. Both seems to know exactly what type of movie they’re making and they act accordingly.
The special effects are pretty solid. Money was spent on this and it shows. The motion capture/CGI on George is fantastic. You’d believe the Rock is standing next to a real 10-foot gorilla. The wolf is decent, not great. The wolf seems to have been the one monster that got the least creativity added. It looks good, but compared to the crocodile it fails. The croc looks great, massive in size and evil. It really comes down to the gorilla fighting the crocodile, giving all the nods to King Kong fighting the dinosaur.
The filmmakers really did a nice job of adding most of the video game elements into the flick organically. The creature crawling up buildings, or smashing the bottoms out and then the having the whole building fall, it was like watching a really good version of the game. Blink and you miss it, but in the background of some shots some of the monsters actually grab people from inside windows and eat them. Like you did in the game to recover health or get extra points. So at least someone somewhere has at least played the game to give the movie some of its homages.
Is this a perfect movie? God no! Does it have plot holes so big that the boat sinks straight to the bottom? You bet your ass it does. So, you know…. it’s fun. For a creature feature this hits all the marks and is rather impressive if you look at it though the monster-flick glasses. But really, at the end of the day it’s all about watching The Rock fight giant monsters, making you laugh and having everything blow up. And with that, it delivers.
