Hello everybody, hope you're all doing well, and welcome to my review of the film Rampage! Pretty much all of my life I've been a huge fan of videogames. Everything from the retro games that I grew up with, to the slick looking modern ones that come out today, videogames remain one of my favorite types of media. Unfortunately whenever a movie studio tries to make a film out of a game it usually doesn't turn out well, and what made the game so great to begin with gets lost in translation. The latest videogame based film to hit theaters is Rampage, and I have to admit I was looking forward to seeing this after viewing the trailer. I love monster movies, and this looks like it could have some potential to be a fun action packed popcorn film. Now that I've had a chance to watch this, let's get into it.
Rampage is a science fiction monster movie starring Dwayne The Rock Johnson, Naomie Harris, Malin Akerman, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. It's loosely based off of the classic Midway arcade game from 1986 that has since been ported over to consoles many times. The game had a simple premise that worked for what it was. You play as a man who gets experimented on, and becomes transformed into a giant gorilla that begins destroying a city. That's really all it was about, so I was curious how they would turn that into a feature length film. After watching this I can tell you that all it has in common with the game is the name, and the fact that there are giant animals.
The movie begins on a space station where someone is performing experiments on a rat that end up making it grow in size. They're using some type of chemical agent that makes this happen, but something goes terribly wrong and the person has to use an escape pod to evacuate the space station. Unfortunately the pod breaks apart upon entering the Earth's atmosphere, and the chemicals used in the experiment end up getting scattered across America. A wolf comes in contact with some of the chemical, and so does a crocodile causing them to begin growing exponentially. The government sends a military team out in search of them with the hopes of containing the creatures or killing them if need be.
The Rock plays a Primatologist who works in a San Diego wildlife reserve, where he watches over an albino gorilla named George. The two of them have a close relationship communicating via sign language. One night, while he's driving home from work, one of the chemical canisters from the space station lands in George's habitat, exposing him to the same gas as the wolf and crocodile, turning George into the third giant animal of the film. Now, just like in the videogame, we have a giant Gorilla, a giant Crocodile, and a giant Wolf. This sounds like a pretty interesting start to the movie, and leaves the door open to all sorts of cool ideas, but it's not nearly as entertaining as it sounds.
Most of the running time is spent on trying to develop a handful of forgettable characters, as well as establishing the bond between The Rock and George the albino gorilla. The characters are incredibly annoying and deliver some truly cringe worthy dialog that falls flat on almost every occasion. There wasn't anyone to root for, or to relate to, and anytime someone was potentially in danger I really didn't care what happened to them. All I wanted to see were these three giant creatures Rampaging around causing chaos, but you don't get much of that until way too late into the film. If the characters were well written and interesting, or had something significant to do, this wouldn't be so bad, but that's not the case.
The monsters themselves are pretty awesome looking, and when you actually get to see them in action the film becomes watchable, but that doesn't happen until the last 20 minutes. By that time I was so worn down from sitting through all the boring nonsense that I really didn't care anymore. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is pretty good in this, and is the only character that I enjoyed watching, but it's not enough to save the movie. Most of the good parts were shown in the trailer, so there wasn't anything that surprised me, and overall this was a big letdown. I had high hopes that this would be a good action packed monster movie, and even though my expectations were quite low, it still didn't come close to reaching what it could have been. If you want to see a good action flick check out Pacific Rim Uprising, or Ready Player One, but not this. I'm going to give Rampage a grade of.................................
D+
Thank you for checking out my review, I hope you enjoyed it!
Movies like this are best watched in 5-10 minute compilations on youtube, or not at all.
I agree, this was a disappointment.