Rampage Review

Directed By: Brad Peyton
Written By: Ryan Engl, Carlton Cuse, Ryan J. Condal and Adam Sztykiel; Based on the video game
Runtime: 107 minutes
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson – Davis Okoye
Naomie Harris – Dr. Kate Caldwell
Jeffrey Dean Morgan – Agent Russell
Malin Akerman – Claire Wyden
Jake Lacy – Brett Wyden
Demetrius Grosse – Colonel Blake
Joe Manganiello – Burke
Will Yun Lee – Agent Park
Urijah Faber – Garrick
P.J. Byrne – Nelson

The classic arcade game, Rampage, comes to life in a new live-action feature from Warner Bros. starring The Rock. Rampage is by no means a great film, but it’s an entertaining monster CG-fest for as long as it’s on.

The film centers on a relationship between a special forces soldier-turned-primatologist Davis Okoye (Johnson) and his best friend, an albino gorilla he raised at a San Diego wildlife sanctuary named George. George is a good-natured alpha gorilla who also speaks sign language with Davis. Unfortunately, George becomes genetically altered after he’s exposed to a mutagenic agent created by extralegal experiments in space. This chemical agent enlarges animal test subjects and makes them highly aggressive and violent. After a mutant rat gets loose, it wrecks the space station where the experiments were being conducted, and the ampules holding the chemicals are released on Earth. Along with George, a wolf in Wyoming and a crocodile in the Florida Everglades are also exposed. Thus, the Rampage movie gives birth to the iconic Ralph (wolf), Lizzie (reptile) and George (gorilla) from the game as they all cut a path of destruction toward the city of Chicago.

Credit to The Rock because he is fairly charismatic to carry this film most of the way through. As dumb as the film is, Davis and his relationship with George come across fairly well. And when the film is about to get too stupid for its own good, director Brad Peyton generally directs attention on The Rock doing something cool or the giant monsters wrecking shop.

The film is generally hampered by its two brain-dead corporate villains, Claire (Akerman) and Brett Wyden (Lacy). Akerman’s great, and while it’s a bit cooler to see a female villain at the center of all this, she is constantly coming up with ridiculous plans. At one point, she decides the best course of action is to send out a signal to draw the monsters to the radio tower in the middle of Chicago because profit. The monsters being the result of corporate irresponsibility and illegal genetic testing is a much easier pill to swallow. Yet, the writers constantly over-complicate the script with boneheaded plot devices to move the monsters into destroying a city and then fighting against each other in the middle of it.

Brad Peyton is far from an exceptional filmmaker, but he’s talented enough to get the job done. Even his last film with The Rock, San Andreas, was flawed but entertaining for the most part. It was a serviceable disaster movie. Rampage is a serviceable giant monster movie. The first half is very rough, but once the plot settles on the monsters going into Chicago and tearing things up is when Rampage more or less finds it stride.

Also, credit to the writers for at least averting expectations with certain character tropes of such films. Upon first glance, Jeffrey Dean Morgan appears in the film as the uptight government leader who is constantly going to undercut the heroes at every turn and refuse to listen to them with his performance as Agent Russell. After his initial introduction, the character does come off that way, but that cliche is then jettisoned fairly quickly. So, it was refreshing to have a government agent character who wasn’t a complete moron and is willing to help and listen to the heroes. That type of character does appear in the film in the form of Demetrius Grosse as Colonel Blake, but he doesn’t appear until much later. Additionally, Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Agent Russell very much comes off like a benevolent good-guy version of Negan from The Walking Dead, which is amusing.

Naomie Harris is more or less wasted in the thankless role of Dr. Kate Caldwell. She’s designated female scientist and would-be, semi-love interest you often see underwritten in these films. It’s not that her character is one-dimensional, but it’s more of a two-dimensional and predictable character. It seems all the clever genre and trope-inversions in the script were given to Agent Russell. The Kate Caldwell character could’ve used some as well.

Rampage isn’t any type of Holy Grail or Ark of the Covenant where the topic of film adaptations of video games is concerned. However, it’s still an entertaining and decently executed monster clash movie that’s serviceable, for as long as you can overlook its flaws with its weak plot and antagonists. There are giant monsters that fight. They look really cool. And The Rock is at the center of it, looking as electrifying as ever. Rampage hasn’t unlocked any secrets or cheat codes, but it’s entertaining, albeit disposable, matinee fare.

6.5

The final score: review Average

The 411

Rampage is a watchable, entertaining action film. It finds its footing about midway through. Once the giant monsters are front and center and onscreen, and The Rock is pitted against them, Rampage finds its stride. It delivers on some entertaining CG-fests of monsters wrecking everything in sight and each other. Is it great? Far from it. Does it break the video game movie curse? Not necessarily? Is it an entertaining and fun action flick with some good actors and performers also clearly having fun in it? Yes, most definitely. With that, it's hard to completely condemn and hate on Rampage. As far as these types of action movies go, it was decently entertaining and inoffensive. The film is decent early-bird or bargain matinee fare.