Review: ‘Rampage’ Is Thrilled With Its Over the Top Mediocrity

Rampage is exactly what you expect it to be: A dumb blockbuster which is nothing but destruction porn.

But in its dumb stroke, the film also brings a certain clarity that we don’t see much in today’s actioners. Pitching in a wolf, a crocodile and a gorilla – all supersized to enable mayhem, this film has a singular objective – to usher in Dwayne Johnson as the knight in shining armor. This is quite in contrast to Transformers or many of its ilk where jumbled up storylines serve only devastation.

Rampage is based on the video game of the same name in which players can transform into colossal monsters who destroy everything in sight. The challenge is to duck the military forces. Therein lies the contrast of its film adaptation. Director Brad Peyton doesn't side with the monsters. Because the larger morality of his audience can’t allow that.

Preposterous from the word go, the film begins at a space station in which we see a woman trying hard to retrieve a few samples of a clandestine scientific experiment. A giant rat shows up, the space station blows up, the woman escapes in a pod, but that blows up too. But the samples live to fall on earth, in three different locations in, of course, America.

These samples contain a green gas that has engineered mixtures of animal DNA which can turn anyone gigantic.

To America’s great misfortune again, three ferocious animals come in contact with the samples. A wolf, a crocodile, and George, an albino gorilla that our leading man Johnson loves more than anyone.

Johnson plays Davis Okoye, a primatologist who according to the film hates humans, but there is nothing to back it up. He is so fawning with his cordial words, and t-shirts showing off his pecks that an intern offers herself to learn the techniques of wait for it… ‘submission’.

Okoye has a deep bond with George, the gorilla whom he rescued from poachers, and the two converse in sign language, offering a few hearty laughs in the film.

When George starts getting big and bigger, Okoye joins hands with Dr Kate Caldwell (Naomie Harris), a discredited genetic engineer, to feed in scientific mumbo jumbo, and Harvey Russell (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), a government agent with a campy southern drawl.

The rest is not enough of rage, and lots of rampage. Three enormous animals arrive at Chicago, the new favourite destination for Hollywood pandemonium, and Peyton again puts his leading man on choppers to save the day.

Rampage serves as a warning for genetic mutation, but the script by four enlightened minds (Ryan Engle, Carlton Cuse, Ryan J. Condal, Adam Sztykiel) fails to notice the irony of casting Johnson in it, considering he seems to be the role model for growth hormones.

Peyton’s film is derivative of every monster and disaster movie possible, and Johnson keeps sprouting lines that only he can in front of impending fatality. With Harris’ character hanging to her death, screaming “We’re gonna die!”, the Rock responds, “Probably.”

Johnson’s ape-mate George is a terrific piece of motion-capture (Jason Liles), but the crocodile and the wolf are not made with tremendous CGI ingenuity. Eventually, Rampage is very thrilled with its over the top mediocrity, and urges you (in vain) to be happy with it as well.

(The writer is a journalist, a screenwriter, and a content developer who believes in the insanity of words, in print or otherwise. He tweets @RanjibMazumder).