Film Review: Rampage

Rampage is probably the best videogame movie I’ve seen, or at the very least, the most entertaining. It’s a low bar, and I’m sure the general consensus will say otherwise, but I had a very good time with it. The film has no other concern in mind other than to find as many ways to wow the audience with spectacle, make them laugh at the character interactions, and cheer on the destructive monster action that dominates the final half hour. It’s made to appeal to very childish sensibilities, and while it may lack in overall ambition, I think it succeeds with what it wants to do greatly.

How else could you possibly make a 1986 arcade game where you play a mutated animal destroying as much of the city while trying to survive a military onslaught palatable as a film?

I think the film makes a rather smart decision in providing an emotional center, revolving the story around the relationship between Davis (Dwayne Johnson), a primatologist, and his albino, silverback gorilla friend, George (Jason Liles does the motion capture). Our initial moments with the two before things go crazy are brief, but they are effective in establishing their bond, and a strong dynamic that pays off in ways I didn’t expect.

Dwayne’s performance here is interesting because he has built an entire brand on how insanely charismatic he is. And here, he plays a man who doesn’t enjoy the company of people. He prefers to be alone. His work friends are only friends at work. When he leaves for the day, he simply enjoys spending time alone at home with his dogs. He finds comfort with animals more than he does with any human, and he has a way of making you buy it when he acts tough and confrontational to the people around him versus when he speaks softly and empathetically around the animals. It’s not a particularly “deep” performance, but it’s a convincing one, and it gives something for its target audience (the kids) to latch onto.

The film is just as ridiculous as you might have expected (or hoped) it would be. There are many scenes that are there purely to explain what is going on, and each explanation is more ludicrous than the last. However, when you have those exposition dumps being delivered by the likes of a weirdly earnest Naomie Harris, a scenery chewing Jeffrey Dean Morgan, or a delightfully villainous Malin Åkerman, it gets really hard to complain about it after a while. There’s a lot of joy in the film and in the performances. Everyone is clearly having fun here, and the film self-aware enough to know to play things light without feeling the need to constantly wink at the audience.

I do think the film would’ve greatly benefited from the presence of a more idiosyncratic filmmaker. Brad Peyton directed this film, and he has had a lucrative working relationship with Dwayne Johnson over the years with films like Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, and San Andreas. While I enjoyed this far more than his previous films, there’s a bland, workmanlike direction that always felt at odds with the more over-the-top storyline, and the colorful characters. His work is competent, and elevated by strong actors, but if the direction had matched the occasional strangeness and absurdity of the material, this would be something kind of great, and not just pretty good.

One odd thing I noticed during the film is that despite very much being for a younger audience, it is shockingly violent. One sequence involving soldiers in the forest plays out like a mini-horror film, like something out of Predator, and there’s a moments where the last survivor finds intestines on the ground. He follows it leading to an area full of bodies, and there’s a solid three or four frames on screen of a man cut in half and his guts spilled all around him. It’s the most gruesome, but the rest of the film doesn’t shy away from getting bloody in ways most PG-13 typically would. It’s honestly kind of awesome seeing the level of violence they got away with, and I can easily imagine a ten-year-old version of me being giddy during the action sequences and squinting with delight at the carnage that I probably shouldn’t be watching.

As far as schlocky monster movies go, Rampage absolutely gets the job done. It knows what it is, who it’s for, and it goes about delivering the goods in the most fun (and often nonsensical) way possible (and all under two hours). If I had to mention one gripe, it was that we were never shown the dogs that belong to Dwayne Johnson’s character (I really got my priorities in check, don’t I?), despite the very vocal mentions of them early on. Anyway, during the bombastic climax, I found myself gasping, laughing, and cheering at the insanity happening on screen. It’s not just because it’s spectacle on its own, it’s because I was genuinely engaged by the characters, and found them worth rooting for. It’s not a great movie, and I probably won’t see it again anytime soon, but I am glad I saw it.

Plus, the image of a gorilla giving Dwayne Johnson the middle finger will never not be funny to me.