There is no reason that a schlocky, over-the-top ‘90s wrestler should become one of the highest-paid movie stars with a magical talent for turning bad movies into watchable movies just because he’s there, BUT HE DID! Now is a good time to advise I’m a big fan of Dwayne Johnson. The rest of it plays out as you’d expect with The Rock and his team trying to save George while the military tries to kill George and company and while the bad brother-sister team that invented the pathogen tries to get away. When George touches the canister he’s infected with a pathogen that causes him to double, triple and quadruple in size and become incredibly aggressive.Īs luck would have it, the other two canisters land on a wolf in Wyoming and, surprisingly enough, right in an alligator’s mouth in the Everglades. George’s life is going swimmingly until tragedy strikes – a secret bioengineering experiment taking place in space falls from the sky and lands - cue dramatic music - in George’s enclosure at the zoo! What are the odds? George is a huge albino gorilla Okoye saved as a baby and raised at the zoo – he can sign and play pranks and is basically a lovable, slightly hairier-than-average human. Rampage is now the story of former Special Forces anti-poacher team leader turned primatologist (a totally normal career path, right?)ĭavis Okoye (Dwayne Johnson) is now working at the San Diego Zoo and spending his days with buddy George. Rampage is based on the ‘80’s arcade game of the same name in which players used three oversized animals (a gorilla, a werewolf and a dinosaur) to crush as much of a city as possible. You’ll come out saying the same.It’s not often Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is the smaller of two leads in a film, but in Rampage his co-star George (an albino gorilla) makes Johnson seem positively tiny. Just watch as the obviously fake George lurches around in size as the film drags on – the final third simply does not know when enough is enough.Īfter surviving a traumatic helicopter crash, Harris has not a hair out of place as she says: ‘I cannot believe I survived that’. For a project of this budget, the effects are similarly embarrassing. Any moment in which the action slows for talking, for instance, levels of tedium rise quite unbearably. To be sure that this critic is not misunderstood, it is an important addendum here that points out that this film is utterly rubbish. A sparky turn from Naomi Harris helps too. Rampage is much more entertaining than the actor’s last team-up with director Brad Peyton, San Andreas. As ever, Johnson’s charisma is key to the fun, saving the film from winding up in insufferable Michael Bay territory. If the intended gags are hit and miss, the abundance of untended crackers more than pick up the slack. When it’s firing on all cylinders, Rampage makes for a joyfully hilarious experience. Apparently, she’s never seen a blockbuster before. Having accidentally transformed three innocent animals into massive, aggressive monsters, Energyne CEO Claire Wyden (Malin Åkerman – here looking the spit of Cruella de Vil) hatches a brilliantly ill-conceived plan to draw the trio into the heart of Chicago. Not only is curious George infected but so are a wolf in Wyoming and an enormous crocodile.Īlthough Rampage is a descendant of video games, the conceit here is comic book daft. When an experiment with a lab rat goes haywire in space, a similarly botched attempt to retrieve the canisters containing the pathogen concludes with three of them plummeting to Earth. In a fun and well-crafted prologue, it is revealed that gene-editing company Energyne has been developing a pathogen with the ability to mutate DNA and create super-beings. Think Chris Pratt and the raptors in Jurassic World and you’re there – right down to the crass hand gestures. Johnson plays former-soldier, anti-poaching primatologist Davis Okoye, a beefcake whose expertise has allowed him to develop a degree of communication with primates and form a friendship with George, the albino gorilla. Increasingly so as giant, poorly rendered, wildlife proceed to propel characters to horrifically nonchalant deaths. This link to console entertainment is, of course, blatantly obvious. Mixing elements of both franchises with those of Planet of the Apes and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the film is actually based on a 1986 video game of the same name. Rampage feels like the film commission made when Warner Bros realised that they wouldn’t be getting Michael Dougherty’s Godzilla vs Kong extravaganza until 2019. There’s no doubt where the wind’s coming from in this city. Parachuting cars, however, have nothing on giant albino ape, massive flying wolf and monster crocodile smash up Chicago. Dwayne Johnson knows his way around a ludicrous script, heaven knows he’s read enough of them.
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