That's it, really. It's just okay.
I've seen people going around saying that it's a triumph and finally breaks the curse of bad video game movies...and I really can't agree for a variety of reasons. Namely, we already have video game movies that are not bad. They're not masterpieces, to be sure, but there are a few ones that are enjoyable. There aren't many, sure, but there are those out there. There's Mortal Kombat or DOA: Dead or Alive if you want examples.
Yes, I know that both are stupid and shameless, but that's rather fitting of video game adaptations, don't you think?
Rampage likewise falls into this category, having little to nothing to do with the source material off of which its based. Some people think that's a form of criticism...but let's be honest with ourselves for a moment, there wasn't really much to go on. At least not enough to fill an almost hour and a half film to any satisfaction. The game itself is not necessarily simplistic, but rather basic and doesn't have a narrative, per se - it's about monsters reducing cities across North America to rubble.
That can be part of a story, certainly, but not a story in and of itself. So something would obviously have to be carted in to make all of the crazy monster fighting make any sort of sense. In comes the man, the myth, the legend - Carlton Cuse!
...y'know, one of the writers behind Lost?
...yeah, I didn't see it either.
We also got three other writers onboard, including the writer or one of the Alvin and the Chipmunks live action films. So you know we're hitting the very peak of quality here! That being said, let's have a look at the film itself before I start to mercilessly tear it apart.
The film begins IN SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE onboard a space station where experiments are being carried out on a lab rat that has been heavily mutated and escapes. The last member of the crew struggles to escape, being forced to go back for the genetic samples by their bosses in the company called Energyne. She escapes...but her pod is destroyed on re-entry and she dies horribly. However, somehow, the samples survive and get to Earth.
One of them ends up in the Florida Everglades, another out in the middle of a desert somewhere, and another still in the gorilla enclosure at a zoo in San Diego. This affects George, an albino gorilla and causes him to grow exponentially bigger and more aggressive. His handler, Davis (Dwayne Johnson), is most perturbed by this and is sent on a quest to get his friend help. He's aided in this quest by Doctor Kate Caldwell (Naomie Harris), a former Energyne scientist who was imprisoned for a crime she totally committed - namely trying to stop the gen mod project.
He is stopped by the antagonistic FBI Agent Harvey Russell (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who later becomes an ally after Davis saves his life. With the owners of Energyne scientist, a brother and sister team (Malin Akerman and Jake Lucy) using a transmitter to lure all three of the creatures to the Energyne corporate headquarters in Chicago, Davis will have to find a way to get through to George and get his help to handle the other two terrible creatures before the military has to bomb Chicago to stop them.
I'm not going to sugar coat it - this movie is dumb. Like...really dumb.
The worst part is the writing, which is where the entire thing starts falling apart. You have Davis, who is a former US military soldier who specialized in an anti-poaching unit who is also one of the world's foremost authorities on primate life. It doesn't really get into the realm of total unbelievability, but it does stretch it a fair bit, particularly given his issues with humans that are brought up and then are never mentioned again, much less get resolved by the end of the film.
I will give Dwayne Johnson credit that he gives a good performance in the film (in fact, all of the main cast does), but his character is really, really bland and generic. You put the Rock in pretty much any role in this film and there'd be very little change. He's a former badass who becomes a current badass and has a few emotional moments along the way to make you empathize more with his character.
Or are meant to, at least.
The rest of the cast fall into the same sort of bland genericness. Even Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Papa Winchester continues to be an ass, but at least he's on the right side this time. Rather than the asshole who murdered Glen and got away with it.
The main problem I have with this movie is that it both tries to draw attention to and shoo us away from the "science" involved in it. The original Rampage game had people turned into monsters by vitamin supplements and the like. Rampage the film has animals made bigger and angrier, which is slightly more believable. However, it quickly devolves into Jurassic World territory, where genetic editing is used to give the creatures abilities on the fly whenever the plot needs it.
Now, I'm not a genetics expert by any means, but it seems to me that the virus used in Rampage would have to be one hell of a chemical to affect a gorilla, a wolf, and an alligator all the same way.
And before anyone comments - yes, I know the wolf is the only one that can fly. Shut up.
The point is that they all become giant size and walking (or flying, in the case of the wolf) bricks and they have to be stopped. That would be fine in and of itself, but the fact that they keep trying to justify the science and make it seem remotely genuine (as well as an attempt by the writers to address plot holes immediately after they show up with dialogue scenes between the brother and sister running the company) just takes me out of it.
I can suspend my disbelief if you tell me "Hey, there are giant monsters here! Science happened and now we have to stop them!". I can't really do that if you keep drawing attention to how you're making real world science cry.
That being said, even with that suspended...the film is okay. For a film with giant monsters, there's actually very little that is memorable in terms of the fights - the final fight in Chicago in particular suffers from Avengers syndrome where "all of Chicago" seems to be about five or six blocks around the Energyne building. While the action isn't boring, it certainly wasn't anything that blew me away and, like Stoopidkid put it as we were leaving the theater, not anything I'd pay to see again.
It's not bad, sure. But it's not good either. It's one hundred and seven minutes of entertainment that offers some good special effects, a few laughs, and is quickly forgotten about after. Nothing more or less. It's definitely not the savior of the video game movie, but then I don't really think it was trying to be.
Rampage is now in theaters from New Line Cinemas and Warner Brothers.
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