Rampage is the new Dwayne Johnson-starring giant monster movie based on a classic arcade game starring a giant gorilla, lizard, and wolf destroying cities. It should come as no surprise that the new movie is also about a giant gorilla, lizard, and wolf destroying cities and if that’s something you want to see, then you should. If it’s not, then you shouldn’t. The movie makes no real argument for swaying anyone’s opinion about what it is.
Dwayne Johnson plays a primatologist watching over a family of gorillas at the San Diego Zoo when a gene editing science experiment falls out of the sky and infects George, the albino silverback leader of the troupe. George begins to grow and become aggressive and eventually breaks free. Meanwhile, a wolf in Montana and a crocodile in Louisiana are also infected. The three monsters then converge on Chicago.
We then get giant monsters attacking the city, giant monsters fighting the military, giant monsters fighting each other, giant monsters fighting The Rock. It’s all an excuse for an all-out special effects disaster / mini-kaiju battle where all the money is spent destroying things.
And the movie is entertaining. it manages to be enjoyable without achieving – or even having the ambition – to be much more than that. I was not bored, I was fairly interested, and I liked the relationship between Dwayne Johnson and George the gorilla. It’s a low key good enough time at the movies that, if it’s the kind of movie you wanna see, I think you’d enjoy seeing it.
One note about the PG-13 rating… wow… they got in a lot of swear words, middle fingers, sexual gestures, blood, and violence into the flick that I’m questioning that MPAA rating. The movie takes the ridiculous premise of the monster attack and does not pull its punches as far as how it looks and providing a body count (even after stressing they’ve evacuated much of downtown). I’m not saying this is bad… I enjoyed the serious take… which is a weird thing to say about a movie that knows its ridiculous about giant monsters.
From an acting standpoint, The Rock does his usual thing but does manage to create empathy for George. Dwayne Johnson is a giant man who is a capable enough actor when called upon and, god love him, he took this seriously. The only other actor of note is Jeffrey Dean Morgan playing a slightly more twangy version of Negan from The Walking Dead. Morgan is having ALL the fun chewing up the scenery… he clearly knows what kind of movie he’s in. He’s fun to watch.
That’s about all there is to say. I’ve said it a few times already so I’ll just reiterate: the is a fine movie about giant monsters attacking a city. It isn’t utterly amazing and it isn’t a boring snooze… it’s just a solid version of what it is. They did a great job with the visual FX and a decent job with the human characters. It’s a pretty good time at the movies.
Score: 78