There is an understanding between filmmakers of turn your brain off monster movies that aspire to be blockbusters and audiences. The viewer needs to take a lot for granted and just strap themselves in, dive into that popcorn and enjoy the show. If that is a something that is super easy to do for you, then Dwayne Johnson’s latest — Rampage — is a delightfully destructive escape. For others who think a little too much during such films, the gaps in the script and plot might drive you a little nuts.
Johnson is a former special ops specialist and current primatologist at the San Diego Wildlife Rescue Center. That’s a man with quite a career whose skill set will suit this story just perfectly.
I digress… So, Johnson is Davis Okoye. He has befriended an albino gorilla from Africa that he saved from poachers and brought it back to his San Diego facility. There, the two get along famously — like the oldest and deepest of friends. Okoye has taught George (… of the Jungle, perhaps?) sign language and their affinity for sharing jokes is only surpassed by their adoration for each other. In that aspect the film shines. We truly feel genuine emotion for these two and that is something that is priceless with a movie like this and it pays off in droves as the tale tap dances into bigger and bigger set pieces (pun intended).
When a genetic altering chemical falls from space (don’t ask) all over the world, one of those specimens lands in George’s enclosure. Ever curious (get it?), George gets inadvisably close to the falling object’s final resting place and boom! He’s exposed to the pathogen. The next morning, Okoye arrives at the facility only to find that George was discovered in the grizzly bear area. His beastly best friend is now hundreds of pounds heavier, many, many feet taller and somehow managed to break the neck of an animal that is known to be the mightiest fighter in the animal kingdom like a toothpick.
Help arrives in the form of a geneticist, Dr. Kate Caldwell (Naomie Harris), who has experience with the company who created the chemical and Okoye has hope that his simian friend can be saved.
Guess again. Soon enough he breaks free, tears off on the loose and joins (as we learn) several other beasts of monstrous nature across the country that are wreaking havoc and for some reason, making a bee-line for Chicago where a city will certainly fall.
We recently were exposed to Pacific Rim: Uprising and to be honest, when it comes to Kaiju movies and their monster movie kin, Rampage is the much better movie. That emotional connection between man and beast is priceless, but there is something that feels a bit more doom and gloom when it comes to the cityscape destructive power of these beasts in this film, versus the alien invaders of the Pacific Rim franchise. It is hard to care about metallic human-driven machines battling underwater borne aliens when there is no connection between audience and screen. In Rampage, based on the famous video game, the price of the destruction is ever more present and with the charm of the cinema’s biggest action star in Johnson, it is compelling, affable, a thrill ride and yes, it even has heaps of heart.
Johnson has become the most surprising of monster movie stars (pun once again intended). Whereas he had initially became known as franchise Viagra, he now has become a one-man blockbuster machine. Not only does he have Rampage in theaters, but in merely weeks, he will again headline an actioner — Skyscraper. Let us not forget that earlier this year, he entertained the hell out of us (along with Jack Black, Kevin Hart and Karen Gillian) in Sony’s most successful movie of all-time, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. Watching him has become moviedom’s latest pastime.
There is something incredibly unique about his big screen appeal. The man formerly known simply as The Rock is simultaneously an everyman, action hero, approachable character that never for one second seems contrived and a persona that leaps off the silver screen with style, panache and a penchant for one liners that few in film history can pull off.
Director Brad Peyton (who directed Johnson in San Andreas and Journey 2: The Mysterious Island) has a short hand with his star and it shines on every frame. These two have an unspoken chemistry that elevates the material of whatever they are presenting to the audiences of the world. They have also gotten better as storytellers collectively over the course of the three-screen tour of duty.
English actress Harris (Money Penny in Skyfall and Spectre) has a blast along Johnson and the two find some serious collaborational chemistry where there was probably little to work with in the script from several screenwriters (including Lost’s Carlton Cuse). Other standouts include Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who is an asset to any project he attaches himself to, as a Homeland Security agent (of some kind) who helps our heroes just when it seems like they need aid the most.
Lost in underdeveloped characters with terrible lines to utter are our villains, led by Malin Akerman and Jake Lacy as the company woman and man responsible for starting this whole mess. Their entire arc is just terrible. It says even more about Johnson that he can elevate this movie with antagonists who are flailing about. After all, any action movie is only as good as its villain(s) and somehow with Johnson’s huge screen presence, Rampage is elevated.
Now, back to that suspension of disbelief. There is way too much in Rampage to forgive and it costs them overall. Experience it for yourself, but just one example…
When the military determines that they must evacuate the city of Chicago, the order is immediately issued. Literally two minutes later, someone asks for the status of the evacuation and is told that it is 50-percent clear. A city the size of Chicago half-empty in under two minutes empty in 120-seconds? Please! Sorry, but that will take you right out of the movie all together. It is unnecessary in terms of a dramatic scope of the entire film to even have a character utter that bit of trivial information. An audience will hear the evacuation order and then just show the action on the ground. No need to violently rip us from the “fun” on screen with a line like that!
Unfortunately, that’s the tip of the iceberg in this department. But, Johnson’s screen presence makes Rampage enjoyable. It also is due to a director with a firm hand in how to deliver popcorn fun like this and yes… the adorable joy of watching an enormous ape and an enormous man make movie magic together.
Grade: B-