Rampage (2018)
Big Meets Bigger
Just when you thought it was safe to exist, I pull a fast one on you and find another movie about giant monkeys. Sure, the new Godzilla movie is out - but I can’t do that one, because it’s way too soon to be putting it out there in any sort of detail other than “I like it” - but that’s okay, I found another movie that I thought I did that I hadn’t done that also involves a giant lizard and a giant monkey doing battle for at least a little while. Grab you cups for the Dwayne Johnson drinking game, tonight the city suffers a Rampage.
I really need to get a grip on my brain, because I really could have sworn I did this one. At the very least, I know I watched this one, I guess I just didn’t gather my thoughts and write them down after watching it. So we have a classic science gone mad sort of story going on here - people figure out gene splicing is possible, then gene editing is possible, then the sensible types decide that this shouldn’t be legal, so the less sensible type decide to take it to space to run experiments “above” the law. Things go wrong, and space station is a wash - leaving the fallout of the experiment to fall to earth and contaminate a few select animals. Said animals get big - like, real big - and develop unnatural characteristics depending on the juice they happened to get sprayed with -like incredible regeneration capabilities and spines and stuff. In the midst of this is a man and his buddy monkey, and it becomes a race to figure out what’s going on and how to fix it before his big hairy pal turns into a real monster.
Corporate greed, unethical practices, mad science playing with DNA, and military inefficiencies against the new mutated bio-weapons are all parts of this. Even with all those in there though, there’s also a tinge of “the power of friendship” in there as well. The main comedy comes from the humans and our lead and his interactions with is monkey pal - yeah, they have some chemistry there. Look, I’ll be honest, they managed to make a decent movie out of a game literally about people mutating into giant animals and destroying buildings and eating people for high scores. Perhaps in later entries they added more story than that, but at the start that’s really all you got from playing the game - and yet, here we are, following the Rock around as he tries to save his monkey so his monkey can save the world. Well, really it’s just because George the Gorilla is his friend, but it happens as it happens.
Humor is subjective, but what sells it here is timing and the people delivering it. You’ll most likely laugh at an interaction or two between George and the Rock when George isn’t being all monster’d out. You might be less likely to laugh at some of the human character interactions since they are less charming - but at the same time, it being subjective, others might actually find an inverse situation where they find a character hysterical and the interactions dumb. That’s just the way it is - and a few of the jokes are slightly crude, but at the same time those ones are the best ones in the movie in my opinion because of the timing and effect. Some of what’s going to make or break it is the actors - and they do a pretty darn good job. I mean the Rock is the Rock, no doubt his more modern movies all sort of have him playing the same character with a sometimes different backstory but he does play that part well. Side characters can be a little bit one note at times - panicked rat-like brother of the corporate evil, focused and greed/power driven female lead of the corporate evil, the “my science was used for evil” doctor sidekick on the path for truth-brought justice, cowboy-wanna be government spook.
A man and his monkey.
While you might not care to stay for the characters, and the story is just enough there to keep you from not wanting to watch the movie, the real bread and butter here is the effects work. Everything looks pretty good, with a few minor moments where it didn’t look as great as elsewhere. In some shots, it’s straight up impressive. There’s a shot at the end where I wasn’t entirely sure they didn’t just prop-department a giant monkey arm with how good the hair looked, particularly with the wind blowing it around. That said, yes, giant mutant wolf-squirrel-porcupine isn’t exactly the most believable looking thing given it’s outlandish mutations, and killer croc-a-gator is overly tusked up and tanked out, but they still look good. Explosions and gunshots, the overall sets themselves all look good as well. If anything, you could argue the costumes are the least impressive thing, but that’s how modern movies tend to fare honestly - less a problem of effort and more of familiarity. They do a good job giving people a look that’s believably something a person would wear, but in turn you don’t even think of it as an actual costume.
The scenes themselves are rather varied and cool as well. From airborne jail-break disasters to wilderness slasher-movie assaults, all the way to the final set piece you went to the movie for in the first place - the city rampage. It gives plenty of variety to the backgrounds so it never feels stale, and it also doesn’t ever feel like it’s sitting still for way too long. It also makes for some great trailer shots - monsters jumping at helicopters, soldiers getting picked off, entire buildings crumbling under the weight of monstrous creatures - it’s some good stuff. If nothing else, this fact alone makes for a great popcorn flick, keeping you entertained even if you glean nothing of long-standing use from it beyond the immediate entertainment value.
Audio does a good job of being balanced. There’s a lot of crashing and roaring and things going on, but you won’t miss someone’s line just because of it. Actors deliver lines well also, granted you might find some of the characters themselves a bit over the top or goofy, and that feeds into appropriate feeling lines for that feeling. Sound effects are great, providing plenty of punch and rumble when you’d expect it to. Music does what it does best in a blockbuster-type movie: it helps support the scenes with energy and groove to help whatever the emotional desire of the scene is - be it sad or getting pumped.
Air wolf.
Rampage has it’s charms, and although I can admit it isn’t a movie for everyone it’s still a pretty good choice for a night’s watch. Big creatures, a big name star, an effects budget getting put to good use, and a story that’s good enough to make the movie happen without being more than it could be. Grab some popcorn, a couple friends, and try not to ask why the main man and his gorilla don’t do the Predator handshake.