Film Rampage review
The "plot" of Rampage, as it is, is that experimental gas falls from a satellite and crash lands in America, mutating a wolf, an alligator and a gorilla, turning them into monsters. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson stars as Davis Okoye, a primatologist and world's greatest living man who takes care of an albino gorilla named George. When George gets mutated and turned into King Kong, Rock "The Dwayne" Johnson races against time to prevent the army from hurting his gorilla friend and also to prevent the other mutated animals from destroying the world.
Is Rampage a good movie?
Well, the plot makes no sense and is riddled with holes, the scenes involving the military just standing around blabbing about the monsters are really dull, the characterisation was really flat and the film also struck me as being sort of pro-military, which was a bit squicky.
So, no, Rampage is not a good movie.
It is however, a lot of fun. Whenever the film is about the monsters tearing shit up, I have no problems. The film has a short running time and moves at a good clip so the dull scenes don't last very long, and even then, Dwayne Johnson still brings his natural charisma and Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Naomie Harris are likeable as well. Surprisingly enough, I found myself being actually quite invested in the friendship between The Rock and George the gorilla, and by the time they teamed up to fight the other monsters, I found I was really cheering them on.
But, really, if you're going to go see Rampage, you're going to go see it for the monster fights and the film really delivers on that front. The monsters have weight, their abilities are well-established and each one has enough personality to be engaging, which I believe is always a must.
Rampage is a relentlessly silly, empty action film. It's got it's charms though, and I can say that if it had been 8-year old me in that cinema, I would have loved it. If you enjoyed films like xXx: Return Of Xander Cage and Kong: Skull Island like I did, then I think Rampage will suit you just fine. I recommend it.
P.S. So...I guess this means that Rampage is now the best video game movie...ever, right? Huh. Okay then.
Film Enjoyable monster flick, better than I thought, overall 4.5 out of 5 stars
I've played the Rampage arcade game at birthday parties and pizza joints as a child, and back in 2009 when I heard that Rampage was getting its own movie I was excited and I kept waiting for it to happen. Though time went by and I started losing hope the movie would ever come out. I got to enjoy pizza and hot wings with this movie, I wasn't allowed to eat pizza while playing the Rampage game.
I thought the human characters received personalities strong enough to make them distinguishable so as people don't just complain that the humans are all "the same" like in any monster movie - Dwayne Johnson who plays Davis is the muscular hero, Kate is the smart girl, Claire is the villainess who thinks that the green mutation gas can make her rich, Brett is Claire's cowardly brother, Russell is essentially Negan without a bat, Colonel Blake is a stereotypical shoot-first, talk-later army commander. Those are all the humans you need to know.
GEORGE is really a nice guy (though he can be quite cruel, he plays pranks) and he can help turn the public's opinion that gorillas are aggressive animals, but then he gets the CRISPR gas that makes him giant and hyper-angry and so he loses his "human-like" personality, his ability to communicate to Davis and starts devolving into a stereotypical killer gorilla. My favorite monster was RALPH because he looked the coolest and he's not goofy looking at all like in the game, he looks the scariest of the three and is crazy-prepared for killing as he can fly and shoot tail quills. Also because Dwayne delivering the line "Of course the wolf flies" just makes Ralph even more likable cause I just love that line, especially how Dwayne said it. LIZZIE was my favorite character to play back in the game because she seemed the coolest, but here Lizzie is more of a spectacle and third-act event to keep the movie interesting than a distinct character.
I would say RAMPAGE was meant to be more of a visual effects spectacle and monster movie flick than a movie that wants to be famous for character or plot development, so I understand why a lot of critics didn't really think this movie was special and gave it less than positive reviews. This was absolutely created for devoted monster movie fans who enjoy Godzilla and King Kong especially the demographics of elementary school boys and teenage boys. RAMPAGE is supposed to be a fun film about monsters tearing up buildings and the U.S. Army then beating up each other - not a sophisticated movie that can please professional critics.
Uwe Boll should stop hating on this movie just because it shares the same name as his. It's because of the RAMPAGE arcade games that I actually heard of Uwe Boll's movies that have the same name and that I gave Boll's movies a try. So in a way, Boll should be thanking the Rampage games for helping his independent serial-killer anti-government movies get a little more famous.