Rampage

2018 • 107 minutes

About this movie

Primatologist Davis (Dwayne Johnson) shares an unshakable bond with George, the extraordinarily intelligent, silverback gorilla who has been in his care since birth. When a greed-fueled corporation's genetic experiment goes awry, George and other animals across the country are mutated into aggressive super creatures that rampage the city. In an adrenaline-filled ride, Davis tries to find an antidote to not only halt a global catastrophe, but to also save the fearsome creature that was once his friend.

Ratings and reviews

I think Dwayne is an alright actor, but most of the acting in this movie was awful and the plot was worse than the video games. Kind of said when you come up with a worse plot than an old arcade game made for the soul purpose of destroying cities as a giant monster. The few funny moments were also not enough to get you to forget the insane plot holes. On top of that George got screwed over in comparison to the other Ralph and Lizzie as far as abilities are concerned. Ralph for some stupid reason could glide and shoot quills. Well he did it once. Lizzie was just gigantic. It probably would have been better if they jut followed the corny video game story. Humans transformed in a lab that end up defeating aliens and an evil transformed human on the moon. Instead of evil corporation using a cure all and turning it into a bio weapon. I am getting annoyed with how many movies use magical plot devices. In the sense that something just happened to work at this point and time. I knew I would not care for this movie in the first 10 minutes. Once I paid for the rental though, I was determined to finish it. Should just not have bothered.

This movie really isn't that good as a whole. The action is pretty over the top, fun and enjoyable, that's really about all Rampage has going for it. I watched it with most of my family and my little brothers definitely loved it, they were constantly laughing at every little joke-ish line of dialogue. This movie seemed to squeeze every curse word they could out of that PG-13 rating, I know it's not exactly a kids movie, but the language seemed quite excessive. Speaking of language, the worst part of this movie has to be the dialogue, it's not well written at all none of the character interactions feel like actual people talking to each other, the exposition was really obvious, in your face and inorganic, if they needed to move the plot along they just said exactly what needed to happen and then did it, you can just tell the amount of effort put into the script (or lack thereof). The characters are quite bland and most of them are very shallow and not thought out and lack any development throughout the film. The "Villians" of the movie didn't really have any actual motive to make the monsters, besides just being "bad guys", I wasn't sure if they were a couple or siblings at first, and it seemed kind of weird that it wasn't more distinguishable. The bad guys didn't have any actual character archs, the sister stayed "evil" up until the point she died, and the brother could've very easily had one, but they kept his character stupid until they crushed him with debrie for a cheap laugh. Something that was kinda weird for a PG-13 movie is how the monsters just kinda casually killed a bunch of people I guess it's comparable to Jurassic World, but there's just times when a building falls or a full boat gets over turned that you know a lot of people just died and nobody cares, it was just weird to me. I don't really don't have anything more to say about the movie, and despite pretty much only having negative things to say about it I don't think it's terrible in all aspects, It can still be enjoyable to watch (but maybe not more than once) it's probably on par with a Micheal Bay movie, so if that's what you like you might like Rampage too. I guess I'd give it a 2.5 out of 5 (I can't do that here so I'll round up half a star, but I don't mean it).

I was expecting Rampage to be a brainless blockbuster that's going to insult my intelligence. And believe it or not, I was wrong. Dead wrong! What I got instead was literally a big surprise. This did not offend my intelligence nor did I get a headache from it either at all. The material is created for pure science-fiction entertainment value and it has a tongue-in-cheek feel to it. That's because it wears it's heart on it's sleeve; it feels like a fun Saturday morning cartoon with sci-fi, action, and giant monsters to it's genre. It also embraces the old-fashioned roots of B movies with monsters from the 1950s. Visually, it is so arresting to look at; It's got some large-scale shots for epic scope, a stunning color palette, and some noticeable detail on the actors and the CGI creatures. The CGI special effects are absolutely jaw-dropping; they look so realistic in an awe-inspiring and horrific way. The action set-pieces are smartly written, exciting, and intense, they have escalated out of nowhere, and eventually has a clever use of slow-motion. That creates a fun and amusing atmosphere. The story isn't bad either; for a sci-fi creature feature, the narrative is simple but fascinating and it stresses the importance of teamwork, communication, and courage. The music score (Andrew Lockington) is effective with haunting cues for the first act of the film, huge bombastic cues for the action, and some tender heartfelt cues for the pathos. While most of the script-writing and direction is clever, I will admit that there are a couple of lines that are redundant, and some of the sign language is inaccurate, but there are several that are correct. The characters are fleshed-out with a strong benefit. Davis (Dwayne Johnson) is an utterly likable protagonist; He is a primatologist who is the head of an anti-poaching unit with a passion for animals and a hatred of humans, especially poachers. Not to mention that he is tough as nails, and he is fully aware of Dr. Kates absurdity and takes it seriously. I think Dr. Kate (Naomie Harris) is a solid character; She does have some ridiculousness, however just like Davis, she has depth and she is fleshed-out, and as a supporting character, she is a great role model. Another supporting character who deserves some praise is Harvey Russell (Jeffery Morgan), he is also fun to watch with his manly smile. Let's not Forget George the rare albino western lowland silverback gorilla (Jason Liles). Not only that he is a persuasive photo-realistic albino gorilla with ape-like behavioral precision, but he's also a character with an emotional connection to Davis, and their bond/relationship is unbreakable with engaging chemistry. It is important to mention that George has a puckish sense of humor at times. The main antagonist is Claire (Malin Akerman) and her hyper-dramatic sidekick named Brett (Jake Lacey), Their goal is to bring in the three mutated giants and dissect them for the pathogen. I find these villains dastardly and effective in a fun cartoony way. In conclusion: Rampage is a likable and enjoyable creature feature that has a lot of heart to it and it's aware of it's own ridiculousness at times.