Rampage *** / *****
Directed by: Brad Peyton.
Written by: Ryan Engle and Carlton
Cuse & Ryan J. Condal and Adam Sztykiel and Ryan Engle.
Starring: Dwayne Johnson (Davis
Okoye), Naomie Harris (Dr. Kate Caldwell), Malin Åkerman (Claire Wyden), Jeffrey
Dean Morgan (Agent Russell), Jake Lacy (Brett Wyden), Joe Manganiello (Burke), Marley
Shelton (Dr. Kerry Atkins), P. J. Byrne (Nelson), Demetrius Grosse (Colonel
Blake), Jack Quaid (Connor), Breanne Hill (Amy).
It
takes a special set of skills to make a movie as gloriously dumb as Rampage
undeniably is, but still make it fun. Not everyone can do it right- as the
recent Pacific Rim: Uprising proved, which was just as big and dumb as this
film is, but isn’t half as much fun. Rampage is a film based on an arcade game
which (apparently, I never played it) was nothing except a giant gorilla, a
giant wolf and a giant alligator destroying buildings – and the film knows
precisely what it is that people who pay to see a movie with that concept want
to see – mainly a giant gorilla, giant wolf and a giant alligator destroying
buildings. The movie doesn’t really try that hard to have the emotional
underpinnings of Peter Jackson’s version of King Kong (it pays it some lip
service, but basically doesn’t care), and doesn’t have the larger implications
of Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla (a film I still love, screw you, you’re wrong about
that one). It’s essentially a hundred minutes of smashy-smashy, with enough
material with an entirely game cast so you can say that yes, there is in fact a
plot here.
And
what a gloriously dumb plot is it! Malin Akerman is Claire Wyden, who runs a
huge company based in Chicago, who as we see in the opening scene, is
conducting genetic editing tests on rats in space, until one of those rats
becomes a giant killer rat, and kills almost everyone on board. One lucky
scientist manages to get to the escape capsule in time, only to die as she
crashes to earth, with three of the samples flying free and hurtling to earth –
landing next to (you guessed it) a gorilla, a wolf and an alligator, turning
them into monsters. The only one of the three giant animals we care about is
George – the Gorilla – who lives at the San Diego Wildlife Centre, under the
watch of Davis Okoye (Dwayne Johnson), a former specialist forces army man, who
is also a former head of the UN anti-poaching team, and is now head
primatologist. He and George are friends – they speak in sign language, and
joke around – so when George starts getting bigger – and angrier – all of a
sudden, he is concerned. Eventually, he’ll meet Dr. Kate Caldwell (Naomie
Harris), who used to work for Wyden and knows about their research, and Agent
Russell (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) – who works for Other Government Agency – to try
and figure out what’s going on. For reasons having to do with perhaps the
dumbest villain plot ever conceived, all three animals make their way to
Chicago – where eventually, they will lay waste to half the city.
Now,
not everyone can act in a film like Rampage – and make it work. I’m thinking of
someone like Charlize Theron – probably a better actor than anyone in Rampage,
but who really seemed out of place in the last Fast & Furious movie,
probably because she took it too seriously. That’s not a mistake anyone in
Rampage makes. Dwayne Johnson is one of the best actors around for these type
of movie star roles, that require nothing more than for him to be charming and
funny, and occasionally kick ass – and he does that wonderfully well. Everyone
else kind of follows his lead – the more talented than needed Naomie Harris is
fine, but you do get the feel that she’s just there to have another woman in
the cast. Malin Akerman is having glorious amounts of fun being an evil woman.
No one is better than Jeffrey Dean Morgan though, who says every line almost as
if he’s about to break out laughing because of how stupid it all is. It’s a
skill he perfected on The Walking Dead, where Negan speaks in catch phrases and
declarations that are asinine, but at least in this, the film knows that.
But
what you really want to see is those three animals destroy things – and once
they get started, boy do they ever destroy things. The director is Brad Peyton,
who teamed up with Johnson for San Andreas a few years ago, so you already know
he’s great at destroying cities (also, he seems oddly fascinated with
helicopters). Yes, you could certainly argue that this is another blockbuster
that destroys cities, evokes 9/11 with its imagery, but doesn’t seriously
consider the human lives lost in the film (they say that half of downtown has
been evacuated when they animals start smashing – that still leaves I have no
idea how many tens of thousands of people dead). But the film is so goofy, you’re
not really thinking about that, are you?
No
one could seriously argue that Rampage is a great film – or even a good one. If
you watch it and say it’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever seen, well, I’m not
sure I could mount much of a defense to that. But the film is glorious amounts
of fun.
