Stuck between The Rock and a hard place.
If you hadn’t figured it out by now: Dwayne Johnson, AKA The Rock, is hot property. Not because he has acting chops, but because he has huge muscles. This is a double standard we won’t delve too deep into here and now, but suffice to say the lad has done well off his biceps alone.
Rampage is based on an 80s arcade game, and yes I’ve mentioned my disdain for this type of film before, but this is really just a property lift – there is little to compare, as in the game you are the monsters tearing down the buildings, whereas the film tries to apply a story to this chaos.
For the most part, it succeeds in adding a little bit of grounding and origin to the story, but it’s totally unnecessary – as is the need for this film overall. I’m a little late reviewing this because I held off seeing it, but finally took the plunge and now I’m reluctant to have to write about it. But here goes.
Johnson plays a primatologist who must track down his albino gorilla pal after he’s been mutated by contaminated space debris. From there it is a smash and grab effort, but if you can recall the actual action sequences once you’ve left the cinema screen then I applaud you.
‘Why not go full gore and have the creatures crushing people or biting off heads?’
In an attempt to establish himself as man who can carry a film – as opposed to being part of an ensemble – Johnson becomes the focus of the story. He seems like a nice guy, but he only has one mode and that’s playing the burly guy; there isn’t much emotional range to his filmography. His niceness also doesn’t help with this role, as we’re supposed to believe he’s some sort of recluse who hates other humans. The film fails spectacularly at giving him any depth as a character and seemingly throws his colleagues away after the initial exposition is taken care of.
What you’re left with is The Rock talking at CGI monsters and a happy-to-be-there Jeffrey Dean Morgan (who tried just a little to hard to convince us he’s a cowboy). Naomie Harris is thrown in as a partial love interest, and her role as a scientist is interesting but under-explored. In the end, her character doesn’t do enough to even warrant being there, which is a waste.
Everyone is trying just a little too hard to make this batty concept seem realistic and weighted. Really what they should have done is try to own the campy concept and go all out; half-arsing the idea leaves us nowhere. There is not even any sense of satisfaction in the tearing down of buildings, and deaths of the public are overlooked. Why not go full gore and have the creatures crushing people or biting off heads? Terrify us in a classic monster movie way. Monsters should be exciting and interesting in their design, but never even look close to real or unique here.
The monsters aren’t even the villains of the piece really, with two rich white folk offered up as money-hungry imbeciles who bite off more they can chew once their space experiment goes south.
Caught between being too serious and not serious enough, I’m not sure what audience this is for other than people who simply find Dwayne Johnson physically attractive – and if that’s the case, then just own it, let’s not pretend it’s anything else by saying he has “charisma” or “presence”. Popcorn blockbusters are hard to find these days, but this could have been good mindless fun had it just embraced the cartoonish source a little more.