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RAMPAGE (2018) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

rampage (2018) movie

Genre | Action Thriller

Classification | M

Running time | 100+ minutes

Released | 12 April 2018

cast

Dwayne Johnson ... Davis Okoye
Naomie Harris
Jeffrey Dean Morgan

director

Brad Peyton

writer

Ryan Engle ... (screenplay by) and
Carlton Cuse ... (screenplay by) &
Ryan Condal ... (screenplay by) and
Adam Sztykiel ... (screenplay by)

Ryan Engle ... (story by)

Brian Colin ... (video game) &
Jeff Nauman ... (video game)

cinematographer

Jaron Presant

music

Andrew Lockington

film editor

Jim May

box office result

Worldwide $? million

Australia $? million

North America $? million

the best dialogue

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RAMPAGE (2018) MOVIE IMAGES

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RAMPAGE (2018) STORY SYNOPSIS

Primatologist Davis Okoye (Johnson), a man who keeps people at a distance, shares an unshakable bond with George, the extraordinarily intelligent, silverback gorilla who has been in his care since birth. But a rogue genetic experiment gone awry mutates this gentle ape into a raging creature of enormous size. To make matters worse, it’s soon discovered there are other similarly altered animals. As these newly created alpha predators tear across North America, destroying everything in their path, Okoye teams with a discredited genetic engineer to secure an antidote, fighting his way through an ever-changing battlefield, not only to halt a global catastrophe but to save the fearsome creature that was once his friend.

RAMPAGE (2018) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty | Review date 14 April 2018
Pop Movee Rating ⭐⭐½

RAMPAGE is the Blockbuster Season’s second BIG Monster movie, neatly timed to capitalise on the gap between Disney’s 2017 first half Superhero roster of BLACK PANTHER and AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR. Where the recently released “Other” BIG Monster movie - PACIFIC RIM: UPRISING - went after the Chinese movie market, RAMPAGE has its oversized protagonists aimed fairly and squarely at North America and those nostalgic for a feature film version of Activision’s 1986 video game!

Like the video game, RAMPAGE features three very large, very destructive creatures. Unlike the video game, this new film features the almost as indestructible Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in yet another movie that requires him to do not much more than inhabit space and deliver the occasional chunk of expository dialogue.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that; to paraphrase something somebody once said...

While there’s no direct connection to 2017’s KONG: SKULL ISLAND, Warner Bros desire to keep putting money up for BIG Monster movies shows the studio certainly thinks that “Bigger is Better!” Surprisingly, RAMPAGE has a few moments where it feels it could exist in the same universe as KONG, especially during the film’s prologue where a Space Station conducting super secret genetic research on animals is incinerated by the antics of a giant mutated rat!

The film becomes less convincing with the array of one-dimensional characters who follow in the minutes after the station’s destruction. Special mention goes to Malin Ackerman and Jake Lacy as the Wyden Siblings; the pair mostly responsible for the creation of the unearthly trio of oversized Monsters that terrorise Chicago for the better part of the film’s second half. Ackerman and Lacy come off as a riff on the old Gene Hackman/Ned Beatty Lex Luthor/Otis routine from the first two Christopher Reeve SUPERMAN movies, with Ackerman as the Hackman equivalent and Lacy playing as dumb as he can in the mould of Beatty’s bumbling Otis. Whether intentional or not, Director Brad Peyton robs his film of its tension by allowing Ackerman and Lacy to play as loose as they do. But they’re not the only performers playing it loose...

Let’s talk about Jeffrey Dean Morgan…

Morgan plays US Government Agent Harvey Russell. Audiences will be familiar with this kind of character. He’s a kind of multi-purpose player who the writers inject into the story when things start to get a bit tedious. In some scenes, the character’s motivation appears to be honourable. In some scenes, his character is called into question, as the film’s protagonists need someone to bounce off because there’s an absence of drama due to the film’s primary antagonist’s being Monsters. The problem with Morgan playing this type of role is his delivery…

Whether intended or not, Morgan feels like he’s playing a “Smug Asshole” in a lot of his roles and RAMPAGE allows him the opportunity to continue to mine the rich vein of this stereotype even further. In RAMPAGE, Morgan’s character’s insistence that he knows more about what’s going on makes his seem like a douchebag from the outset and his eventual “change of heart” seem disingenuous because he continues he continues to act like a “Know-It-All”. To top it off, Russell is written as “Cowboy”, replete with the drawl, the belt buckle and sidearm stuck into his pants like it’s too hard to buy a decent gun holster.. It’s a bit too rich to be believable and, despite the all-round lack of “real” characters, Morgan’s Russell jars against the rest of the acting ensemble.

Central to the ensemble is the immovable object known as “Dwayne Johnson”. Much like his former wrestling persona, Johnson is the metaphorical rock to which RAMPAGE is tethered and, without his presence, it’s arguable that the movie couldn’t function as entertainment. Much like Schwarzenegger in the 1980s, the allure of Johnson is seeing how much physical punishment one man can take and still “Save the day”. Arnold exemplified it best in movies like PREDATOR and COMMANDO, where he just kept going until he overcame the odds. Johnson does it in a slightly more sophisticated manner, but, at the centre, it still boils down to one very large physical specimen up against an even BIGGER adversary; whether it be either Men (read: Armies) or Monsters. Unlike movies such as CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE or even JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE, Johnson’s Davis Okoye in RAMPAGE is a pretty humourless kind of fellow. The only time Johnson gets to play any humour in the film is with George, the CG ape, and it’s Johnson who has to play it straight as his primate counterpart engages in some inappropriate sign language at points throughout the story.

In terms of a “real” character, Naomie Harris, the current Bond movies Moneypenny, is the only actor whose performance comes anywhere close to relatable. Harris plays Dr. Kate Caldwell, a former employee of the aforementioned Wyden siblings and the only person who actually knows what’s going on with the genetically mutated Ape, Wolf and Crocodile! Unfortunately, Harris’s efforts are all for nothing, as RAMPAGE descends into a visual effects farce in its second half and her character is required to do not much more than “show up” at convenient points throughout the story to help Johnson in his effort to save George and stop the other two Monsters.

Despite all of these limitations with the performances, RAMPAGE is not really about the humans…

This is a movie that is based on a video game, so it’s probably best to accept the inherent limitations of story and character that computer games place upon movie adaptations and focus on what’s important to the film being successful…

The Monsters!

The visual effects of RAMPAGE are a bit choppy. George, the Albino Ape who hangs out with Johnson’s Davis Okoye, is rendered beautifully. He feels like he’s integral to the story and his interaction with Johnson is important, demonstrating a credible bond between the two that needs to be convincing in order for the film’s finale to create any resonance at all.

What isn’t so beautiful are the big action set-pieces, featuring an overwhelming array of computer animation that is a blur of motion rather than any kind of visually meaningful action. Much like the emergence of the Flu virus every year, mediocre computer animated visual effects seem to infect every major film released for the North American Summer Box Office. Unlike George, the Wolf and Crocodile CG characters in RAMPAGE are never quite convincing. The Wolf appears especially faux. Surprisingly, the bulk of the film’s visual effects were supplied by Weta Digital, whose work has come to be regarded quite highly and whose VFX Supervisor, Erik Winquist, has previously worked on the new PLANET OF THE APES films, THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy and AVATAR. The visual effects of RAMPAGE are a rare “MISS” for the New Zealand-based company whose work has seen it rise to the top of its field, with work that is, arguably, as good as anything ILM has ever done.

Viewers who enjoy Dwayne Johnson (no matter what he’s in), like lots of visual effects and are happy to trade-off story for action will love RAMPAGE. Unlike Johnson and Brad Peyton’s previous disaster epic SAN ANDREAS, there’s a distinct lack of human drama in this new film. It’s all about the Monsters! Fans of the game beware, this RAMPAGE is really a name-only exercise in brand appropriation. There’s not really a lot that ties the game and the film together, other than a BIG Ape, a BIG Wolf and a BIG Crocodile smashing a city to pieces. If that doesn’t sound like a good time, steer clear of RAMPAGE.