Rampage (2018)
Dwayne Johnson
finally gets a star to match his size if not charisma in the sometimes
gloriously ludicrous “Rampage,” a movie based on a hit arcade game that
was literally just larger-than-life monsters bashing buildings. If
you’re thinking, “Wow, that seems like a flimsy premise from which to
adapt a feature film,” you’re not entirely wrong. Directed by “San Andreas” helmer Brad Peyton,
this CGI blockbuster is often a defiantly stupid movie, most
comfortable with what it’s trying to accomplish when giant monsters are
destroying half of downtown Chicago or leaping on moving helicopters.
It’s the narrative tissue in between that allows the movie magic to
falter every now and then. However, when Johnson is doing that movie
action star thing he does so well and giant animals are going
enormous-mano-a-enormous-mano, there’s undeniably goofy fun to be had.
You just have to be patient during the downtime.
“Rampage” opens by establishing its ridiculous tone early. A
scientist on a space station is struggling to save some genetically
engineered samples from, well, a mutated super-rat. The station is on
fire, and everyone else appears dead, but she’s ordered to save the
science. Yes, “Rampage” opens with a super space rat aboard an on-fire
spaceship hurtling to Earth. It’s certainly a tone setter.
The samples plummet to Earth, and land in three locations. One
happens to hit ground in a San Diego Wildlife Sanctuary managed by Davis
Okoye (Johnson). Davis’ favorite beast is a giant albino gorilla named
George, and the clever animal happens upon one of the genetic samples.
Before you know it, George is growing at a never-before-seen rate,
accompanied by increased aggression and insatiable hunger. He kills a
bear, escapes, and, well, lots of things go boom. That’s why you come to
a movie like “Rampage”—to see and hear things go boom.
A
critical caveat seems appropriate here: I dig giant monster movies. I
still awe at the 1933 “King Kong,” a movie that I consider among the
most important ever made. I even dug Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake, as well as recent iterations of the King of the Monsters both in Gareth Edwards’ 2014 American version (“Godzilla”) and Hideaki Anno & Shinji Higuchi’s 2016 Japanese version (“Shin Godzilla”).
There’s something about the spectacle of movies like “King Kong” and
“Godzilla” that’s singularly cinematic—it’s not something that other
forms like theatre, TV, or fiction can do in quite the same way. Add
this appreciation for big creatures slamming into buildings with my
belief that Dwayne Johnson is one of the few current working actors we
can legitimately call a ‘movie star’ and “Rampage” should be a slam
dunk. I even played the arcade game!
So, why isn’t it a slam
dunk? Sure, there are times when “Rampage” gives viewers exactly what
they were hoping for when they opened their wallets or whipped out their
MoviePass. No one can really accuse this movie of not delivering on
what was in the trailers (although one could argue the whole
movie is in those trailers). So why isn't it the "King Kong Meets the
Rock" it could have been? First, the film seriously muddles its vague
attempts at emotional undercurrents. Davis mentions early on that he
likes the company of animals more than people, but to say he has no
actual character would be an understatement (George is actually more
developed). And Naomie Harris’
eventual sidekick Kate has an emotional back story that’s designed to
make her more accessible but really just falls flat—a scene between the
two when they share their pasts, including when Davis found George and
saved him from poachers, is embarrassingly mishandled.
But nothing sinks the film more than Jake Lacy and Malin Akerman’s
villains, the nefarious siblings who run the evil company doing evil
science things and making evil big animals and more evil stuff. They
sometimes sound like they were written as over-the-top
caricatures—Lacy’s Brett actually says, “There’s a reason we were doing
these experiments in space!”—but the characters/performances are so
bland that the movie sags every time they show up. More fun are Joe Manganiello’s soldier of fortune and Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s
‘OGA’ (Other Government Agency) Officer. Morgan delivers every line
with a cocked neck and Southern side-eye that hints he knows how goofy
this whole thing truly is, or at least should be.
Morgan’s
having fun, for sure, and Johnson is charismatic, but Peyton too often
struggles to convey that "big monster movie" sense of excitement
cinematically. Even when “Rampage” gets to the fireworks, it feels like
it’s too often going through the motions. There are just enough
“big” beats—a giant wolf leaping at a mid-air helicopter, George using
tanks like toys on Michigan Avenue, all the animals climbing the
will-always-be-known-as-to-me Sears Tower—to keep fans engaged, but
monster movies should do more than just keep you engaged. They should
wow. They should fascinate. They should strike the imagination in such a
way that they allow things like cheesy dialogue and thin characters to
not only be critically dismissible but downright preferable. “Rampage”
never quite gets to that point where you can consistently ignore the
things it does wrong, and that can be deadly for a movie about animals
the size of apartment buildings. It’s a tonal balance that “Rampage”
only sometimes hits. Maybe they’ll perfect it in time for “Dig Dug.”
Stars:
Release Date:
12 April 2018 (Philippines)
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Also Known As:
Rampage: Big Meets Bigger
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Box Office
Budget:
$120,000,000
(estimated)
Company Credits
Production Co:
