Rampage

2018 action movie

Rating: 9/20

Plot: The Rock tries to save Chicago from monstrous animals while attempting to reconnect with his gorilla friend George.

I'm at a point in my life when any movie starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is going to get me to the theater. The dude emanates charismatic action heroics, and as he says at some point in this movie, he's got big arms. Call it a man crush if you want, friends, because I have no shame. The Rock distracts from every other human character in this movie. It's almost like the canister from space landed near his house and farted that green stuff on him. He gets a few one liners (a deadpan "That sucks" being my favorite), shows off how indestructible he is, and somehow manages to have rapport with a CGI gorilla. The Rock is a force.

Rampage, based on the video game that I used to play all the time at Hills on the north side of Terre Haute, Indiana, has a lot of scientific mumbo-jumbo to wade through before you get to the money shots of monsters destroying the Windy City. Once it's there, the special effects are spotty while the logic is spottier. In fact, go ahead and throw all logic off the top of the Sears Tower or whatever the hell they call it now. Cowboy scenery chewing from Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who I'm reading plays a popular villain on The Walking Dead, emerges from the leveled buildings and underdeveloped stock characters. Maybe that's why Johnson overshadows them all so effortlessly--they're really dull characters. Most embarrassing are the villain siblings played by Malin Akerman and Jake Lacy who seem like they just wandered in from a cartoon or something. These are some lame bad guys.

The monsters themselves are fine unless they're interacting with the environment, people, or vehicles. Then things get a little cartoonish. There's something nearly fun about watching the, um, rampaging, the willingness to cinematically destroy some notable landmarks in Chicago. I was really hoping to see the giant alligator (or is that a crocodile?) eat a Harry Carey statue but ended up disappointed.

This is a movie that isn't afraid to get really stupid, and if it had just embraced that stupid instead of trying to make it all somehow scientifically viable, it probably would have worked a lot better. As it is, it's harmless and largely forgettable as a mildly fun action adventure.

Note: This loses a full point with a gesture that the gorilla makes. No, it's not the gesture he makes twice. It's the other one. It got a big laugh in the theater, but I was really annoyed.