A Keaton Review: Rampage
By: Keaton Marcus
Genre/Action/Adventure
Age Rating/13+
Lemonradar/47% sour
So What’s The Story?
Hi, this is Keaton Marcus from Sweet and Sour Movie Reviews and today I will be reviewing this year’s video-game adaptation of the 80’s arcade game, Rampage starring Dwayne Johnson. When George, a rare albino gorilla gets infected with a certain pathogen from the Athena 1 crew in space, the animal gets more aggressive, faster and smarter, when primatologist David Okoye (Johnson) finds out he tracks three animals (a wolf, gator and George the monkey) are headed to Chicago to destroy the entire city.
How Was The Cast?
An unusual thing for Video-Game adaptations is they do not tend to have a talented star, Rampage promotes well-known star Dwayne Johnson at the wheel as primatologist (animal’s best friend) David Okoye, more cast include positives to diversity including side-character Naomie Harris as Dr. Kate Caldwell, ‘the supposed girl’ to cure everything. Johnson, surprisingly was fully able to take his comedic strengths and use them for laughs in this brainless Blockbuster of mass destruction, I think Mr. Johnson is exactly the guy you would want to see takedown mutant ‘godzilla like monsters’ in this particular movie. Dwayne Johnson is a fun actor promoting roles in Disney’s Moana, the buddy-action comedy Central Intelligence, the disaster film San Andreas, the adventure movie Journey 2 and now he proves himself that he fits just as well in a monster movie filled with special effects galore. And even although the trudgy script dragged the actor around, Dwayne Johnson, in other words made this film actually watchable. As I said before performing other character, Dr. Kate Caldwell was actor Naomie Harris known for some OO7, the drama Moonlight, the swashbuckling Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, again Harris promotes more diverse themes into the movie, as she plays a smart scientist who is just as important or more as other characters. Like Johnson, Ms. Harris has showed talent in every one of her movies, in a monster movie it was a totally different story, Naomie Harris was drowned in terrible directing, story and script and was barely enough to tread back up through the entire span of the movie on the laughable dialogue (actually funny) coming with terrible character background and development. Performing half-villain, half-hero Agent Russell is Jeffrey Dean Morgan, taking his roles from Watchmen, Desierto and the supernatural hit TV series The Walking Dead the actor was half-able to create some chemistry with Johnson and Harris, but ended up fiddling with an outrageous accent, cocked 'cowboy like' head and found battling awful screenplays the entire time.... well monsters too, my point is that Morgan was not right for this kind of movie, and although he could have been ready with his particular career of action and zombies, Mr. Morgan was a miss for the entire film.
Is It Worth Your While?
Directing this 1 hr 47 mins of CGI madness is filmmaker Brad Peyton who is known for many Dwayne Johnson action flicks such as San Andreas and Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, also directing kids sequel Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore and Horror movie Incarnate. As you saw, Peyton has a very diverse career shall we say not exactly good though, the director has failed at almost all genres he tries including this. Brad Peyton almost single handedly ruined the entire film by making it so laughably bad, that it was actually a fun, occasional CGI thrill ride. It obviously did not live up to the expectations set by great city monster flicks such as the original King Kong or Godzilla, but it proves itself to be a amazingly entertaining diversion for the classics all the way from giant gators eating people to George (hence Curious George) the monkey giving the sex symbol and middle finger to various people (hysterically funny); However taking in a story that cannot decide to be a romance, comedy, or drama and a script that almost kills off all the actors Brad Peyton was overall not the best choice for a monster flick, “although I appreciate him trying.” Something that this movie was made for was special effects and CGI, this was what we were expecting and this was what he got, hardcore special effects of a giant gator mutant knocking down buildings, George the giant ‘King Kong’ like monkey eating people on top of buildings and a flying wolf that shoots spikes (based on the trailer). Focusing on a 120M production budget, they used it well creating a fun world of mass destruction of cities for monster fans (like me) and although again not reaching up to other CGI monsters such as 2014’s Godzilla, Rampage proved well on creating just enough cool special effects and fun to half-override the terrible plot and story. Why was the film not a complete slam dunk you may ask? Why was it not 'Rock/King Kong' sort of film? Well, there were many times that Rampage gave just enough fun to take down it's ludicrous plot that the movie goers were expecting, but the film undercuts it's emotional standpoint to the film unlike the beautiful feeling when you watch King Kong, obviously the film leaves out any potential smarts that could have been inserted here and there, and really overall the storyline and plot sinks the most in this movie however leaving the freedom for filmgoers to have some fun (if patient), but ultimately does not match up to superior movies of the genre.
Aging ‘George the Monkey’
Ranging in violence, sex and language to other movies of the genre such as Cloverfield, King Kong, and Godzilla. Violence wise there are many non-realistic killings with very few gore or blood, the intensity of loud music and destruction from the various monsters and the army fighting back and many scenes of mass gunfire, explosions accompanied with bad language. There are many common uses of s..t, a-hole, mother f...er, goddamn, jesus christ and god and the gorilla uses the middle-finger in sign language as a joke. As in many other big-budget monster movies, there is barely any time to focus on sexuality, and although in one scene George the monkey sticks up the sex symbol ‘index finger through a fist’, it will fly past kids’ heads like nothing even happened (also for joke reasons).
Monster Movie Flop-down
Rampage 55% sour
Violence: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆
Sex: ⭐☆☆☆☆
Language: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆
Age Rating: 13+
King Kong (2005) 60% sweet/sour
Violence: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Sex: ⭐☆☆☆☆
Language: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆
Age Rating: 14+
Rampage 55% sour
Storyline: ⭐⭐☆☆☆
Cast: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆
Role Models: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆
King Kong (2005) 60% sweet/sour
Storyline: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆
Cast: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆
Role Models: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆
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