Movie Review: Rampage

Disclaimer: This review will contain spoilers. Don't read it unless you've already watched the movie or unless you don't care about being spoiled. I like to analyze movies, and I can't really do that unless I spoil the movie. You have been warned.

A company called Energyne has been performing unethical experiments on animals in a space station. These experiments have involved gene manipulation, in which a rat has grown to many times its original size and is wreaking havoc on the space station. The lone occupant of the station, Dr. Kerry Atkins, retrieves the experiment and heads back to earth. However, the escape pod disintegrates on re-entry, killing the scientist but dropping three canisters to earth. One is consumed by a crocodile, a wolf is exposed to another one, and a third victim, a rare albino gorilla named George, is exposed to a canister. Primatologist and former US Army Special Forces soldier, Davis Okoye, has befriended George. However, George has started growing, just like the wolf and crocodile, and soon all three are rampaging through the streets of Chicago.

I was flabbergasted when I first saw the trailer to this movie. I was actually able to guess that it was Rampage before the title came up, mainly because Rampage is a game I played on NES as a kid. I was floored that they would attempt to make a movie based on this simple game about giant monsters who rampage through a city and compete to eat the most civilians and crush the most vehicles. But I guess since Battleship was made into a movie, why not Rampage?

The game did have a story, although it wasn't much, but this movie doesn't follow the story of the game. In the game, the monsters were former humans who were all transformed by different methods (in the film, government agent Harvey Russell makes a joke about "internet nerds" calling the wolf Ralph, which is a nod to the game in which the wolf was originally a human named Ralph). In the movie, the monsters were all originally animals who grew to massive sizes based on the gene manipulation canisters. Of course, movies based on video games have sort of a checkered history. There hasn't really been a "good" movie based on a video game, although I'm one of the few people who actually likes the Super Mario Bros. movie (and I'll likely review it at some point).

I usually like to read reviews of movies after I see them, to see what the critics think. I hardly ever agree with the critics, and this is no exception. The critics seemed to have generally disliked this movie, which just shows that I'm never going to understand what critics are trying to get out of movies like this. No, this movie is not going to be the next Citizen Kane. But it was actually a surprisingly good kaiju monster movie. No, it didn't break any new ground in the genre, but the special effects are quite excellent and very believable (even though I knew a jump scare was coming, one jump scare with the giant wolf actually caused me to jump out of my seat). And the movie surprisingly gets to the action really fast. It doesn't really meander much with the story. Additionally, one of the most common criticisms of Kong: Skull Island I read was their two-dimensional people. There was no character development, or even really no identifiable personality in the characters in that movie (save John C. Reilly's character -- but come on, it's John C. Reilly). This movie did give a backstory to some of the characters, so that they weren't exactly two-dimensional. But the critics don't seem to care that a movie at least tries in this regard.

This was definitely a movie I enjoyed, and I would say should probably be regarded as one of the better video game movies. There are definitely worse kaiju movies (I'm looking at you, Godzilla 1998), and even though the plot is forgettable, the action scenes are very well done, and the CGI monsters are believable.

Themes

There really aren't many themes, to speak of. There's Davis and George's relationship, of course, and the fact that they anthropomorphized George. George is basically an ape that acts as a human, including playing practical jokes, and flipping the bird to Davis. So George was kind of over-the-top in how gorillas really act.

I'm not a fan of wrestling, but Dwayne Johnson (formerly "The Rock") has actually turned out to be a pretty good actor, although he's been typecast as the "action hero" type. However, one thing really stuck out at me. The main human villain of the movie, Claire Wyden, shot Davis in an attempt to stop him from giving a serum to George that would stop his aggression, leaving him for dead. Later on top of a building with George climbing and wreaking havoc, it is revealed (surprise!) that Davis didn't actually die from his wounds. Wyden holds Davis and his associate, Kate Caldwell, at gunpoint, saying that she is glad that Davis is alive so that they can distract George while she makes her escape. Then Caldwell says she is "feeding the monster to the gorilla", puts a serum in Wyden's bag, and then pushes her toward George so that George can eat her. A particularly gruesome death, which one might say was earned because of how evil she was and due to her actions in the movie. However, at the point she was not an imminent threat. In fact, she said that she was going to leave them alive so that they could act as a distraction for the gorilla. This means that Caldwell killing Wyden was not in self-defense; it was a revenge killing, all while dehumanizing her by calling her a "monster." This does not strike me as a heroic act. It strikes me as an act of murder, even though one might also call it poetic justice. Perhaps I'm mistaken on this point, and someone can set me straight on it.

Grade: B+

A fitting grade for a B-movie. Like I said, it wasn't great. There are better kaiju movies, but there are also worse ones. This was a surprisingly good monster movie, well acted, good CGI, good action. All-around, it's just a good popcorn flick that really doesn't try to be anything more than it is. And that's good enough for me. Not every movie I see has to be a thinker.

Rampage
Directed by: Brad Peyton
Written by: Ryan Engle, Carlton Cuse, Ryan J. Condal, and Adam Sztykiel
Starring:
Dwayne Johnson as Davis Okoye
Naomie Harris as Dr. Kate Caldwell
Malin Akerman as Claire Wyden
Jake Lacy as Brett Wyden
Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Harvey Russell
Marley Shelton as Dr. Kerry Atkins
Joe Manganiello as Burke
Demetrius Grosse as Colonel Blake
Jason Liles as motion capture for George