Lord knows we here at TDA love Dwayne Johnson. Starting with The Mummy Returns, he’s usually been the best part of whatever he’s in. This remains true for Rampage, as well. It’s just too bad the rest of the movie lets him down.
Rampage was a 1986 Bally Midway arcade game in which players controlled formerly human monsters—a gorilla named George, a dino/lizard named Lizzie, and a giant wolf named Ralph. Players advanced to the next round by destroying cities. In the movie, directed by Brad Peyton (San Andreas) the goal is to prevent the monsters from destroying a city—specifically, Chicago, in a nice change of pace from the usual New York, Washington DC, or Los Angeles.
In the movie, George is a friendly albino gorilla who’s been raised and trained by Johnson’s primatologist Davis Okoye. At the same time, we have Evil Corporation™ developing a mutagenic compound in space (OK, sure). When the experiment Goes Drastically Wrong and the debris crashes to Earth, George, an alligator, and a wolf are “infected” by the compound. They immediately mutate into monster versions of themselves and start, well, rampaging toward Chicago, where Evil Corp has a homing beacon going.
Meanwhile, Evil Corp ex-employee Naomie Harris (who really has no reason to be in this movie) joins forces with Oyoke to get hold of the antidote for George and the other monsters. Working against them is the US Army plus Shady Government Guy and world-class scenery chomper Jeffrey Dean Morgan (The Walking Dead), who chose to have a random Southern accent for this picture. And playing the role of corporate Snidely Whiplash (look it up, youngsters) is Malin Akerman (Watchmen). You know she’s a villain because her normally blonde hair is brown. Associate Whiplash is Jake Lacey (The Office). Everyone converges on Chicago, where the destruction and final battle occur.
There’s nothing new in the way of spectacle here—we first saw it back in 1933 with King Kong. As for the physics, the less said, the better; we see a building fall over, not down, with Johnson and Harris hovering alongside it in a damaged helicopter to get down to the ground safely(?). As for the story, it took four writers to get it this incoherent. One example: We’re supposed to sympathize with George, as Okoye’s best friend, even while he’s *actually eating people*? I don’t think so.
I can’t really recommend this one. If you want to see a city trashed, previous Peyton-Johnson collaboration San Andreas does a better job. If you want sympathetic monsters, the 2014 Godzilla is probably right up your alley. And if you want a truly good adaptation of a videogame, you’re going to have to keep waiting.
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