RAMPAGE DOESN’T BLEND ACTION, COMEDY, AND HEART AS WELL AS THE ROCK’S BEST TENTPOLES, BUT THERE’S GOOD DUNDERHEADED FUN TO BE HAD HERE.


Dwayne Johnson’s Rampage manages to be both one of the more enjoyable and one of the dumber video game movies in recent memory. The film neither aspires to be high cinematic pop art like fellow game adaptation Assassin’s Creed nor attempts to break the video game movie mold, a la Warcraft and Tomb Raider. Instead, this big screen take on the Rampage property (which started out as a Bally Midway arcade title in the 1980s) fits squarely into Johnson’s “brand” and could have easily been an original sci-fi movie about The Rock battling giant monsters, had it dropped the references to the original games. Rampage doesn’t blend action, comedy, and heart as well as The Rock’s best tentpoles, but there’s good dunderheaded fun to be had here.

Johnson stars in Rampage as Davis Okoye, a seasoned primatologist who prefers the company of animals to humans after his years of service in the military, and his time leading an anti-poaching unit. Now based at a wildlife preserve in San Diego, Davis spends his days training new recruits and caring for the gorillas that are kept there. Davis has a particularly strong bond with George, an extremely rare albino silverback gorilla whom Davis has cared for since he was an infant, and has learned sign language from his human companion.


Everything changes one night when George is exposed to a mysterious chemical from a canister that crashed down at the preserve from outer space, causing him to begin growing rapidly and raging out. Desperate to help his friend before the government either takes George away or kills him, Davis begrudgingly turns to an unexpected ally in genetic engineer Kate Caldwell (Naomie Harris), who claims to know how to cure George of his condition. However, it turns out the situation is even more complicated than they thought, as Davis and Kate soon learn that George isn’t the only animal that’s been infected by this strange pathogen…

Rampage marks the third collaboration for Johnson and director Brad Peyton, after their family-friendly 3D adventure sequel Journey 2: The Mysterious Island and the natural disaster thriller San Andreas. Peyton applies the experience that he gained from making those films to positive effect here, resulting in one of his more polished efforts; starting with the movie’s Gravity-esque opening aboard a space station orbiting the earth and continuing on to the city wrecking mayhem that dominates the third act. The movie doesn’t exactly boast a rich color palette (like San Andreas, it’s mostly painted in flat shades of brown and grey), but its action and set pieces are photographed in a clean fashion that makes them easy to follow. Rampage also combines elements of a monster horror movie with a disaster tentpole, military action-adventure and, as mentioned earlier, even a cosmic thriller at one point, further showcasing Peyton’s range as a director in the process.


The actual story for Rampage is cheerfully dim-witted and attempts to use half-baked science fiction concepts (namely “genetic editing”) to explain the cause behind the film’s raging, mutating, giant behemoths. Armed with a screen story and script credited to Ryan J. Condol (Hercules), Carlton Cuse (San Andreas), Ryan Engle (The Commuter), and Adam Sztykiel (Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip), the film is further loaded with hammy exposition and handwavy explanations for what is even happening and why characters are doing things at any point in time. Rampage typically avoids taking itself too seriously though, and Peyton and his crew similarly favor forward momentum over in-depth plot or character development. The movie may not have much more on its mind than the games about city-wrecking creatures that inspired it (and the cliche-ridden B-movies that inspired them), but at the same time it usually avoids pretending otherwise.

There’s not a whole lot to Rampage‘s characters either, though the relationship between Davis and George (portrayed by frequent creature performer Jason Lilies) provides the film with a serviceable emotional core. Rampage rarely manages to create the illusion that The Rock isn’t interacting with a CGI character brought to life through motion capture and green screen, but it does succeed in making George a fun reflection of Davis’ “loud and crude, but with a heart of gold” persona. Harris as Kate is mostly there to react to Johnson’s antics and push the plot forward, and her motivation and backstory here are equally perfunctory. She makes for a proper sidekick though, while Johnson has enough charisma and swagger to sell Rampage‘s protagonist as being a worthy hero with a simple arc of his own (one that basically involves him learning how to make friends).


As for the supporting characters in Rampage, they’re about as ridiculous and cartoonish as the “genetically edited” monsters wreaking havoc. Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s government agent Harvey Russell, for example, struts around with a giant belt buckle and a pistol in his holster for the entire movie, lest anyone forget that he’s a modern cowboy/maverick. Morgan wisely plays the character over the top throughout, as do Malin Akerman and Jake Lacey as Claire and Brett Wyden – the conniving siblings that run Engyne, the company responsible for “Project: Rampage”. The rest of the ensemble is rounded out by familiar faces like Joe Manganiello, P.J. Byrne, and Will Yun Lee, but for the most part they serve as little more than glorified extras.

In the end, Rampage is very much the tongue in cheek and otherwise goofy video game movie that its trailers have promised, for both good and bad. It lacks the heart and memorable characters found in the best movies from The Rock’s “brand” (see Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle), but offers enough popcorn entertainment value to earn a passing grade. Rampage would probably struggle to stand out in the upcoming summer movie seasons next to films that, by the look of them, are better crafted and offer more substance to go with their spectacle. However, between the lull in April movies and there still being a couple weeks until Avengers: Infinity War arrives, Rampage ought to do the trick for anyone who’s in the mood for some enjoyably forgettable blockbuster silliness.

TRAILER



Rampage starts playing in U.S. theaters nationwide on Thursday evening, April 12. It is 107 minutes long and is rated PG-13 for sequences of violence, action and destruction, and brief language, and crude gestures.

Our Rating:
2.5 out of 5 (Fairly Good)