Rampage (2018) – Review

Director: Brad Peyton
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Malin Akerman, Jake Lacy

The Overview
When three different animals become infected with a dangerous pathogen, a primatologist and a geneticist team up to stop them from destroying Chicago. (Source: IMDb)

The Review
Let’s start off by saying that objectively, Rampage is not a good movie, in fact it is pretty terrible. But is it a good time at the cinema and did I have an absolute blast watching it? Heck yeah I did! As an unashamed fan of Dwayne Johnson, I will watch absolutely everything that he is in, and quite frankly he can sell the biggest of turds, and Rampage is a giant, genetically modified, monster turd. 

The plot has more holes than a slice of emmental cheese, and the script is similarly heavy  in dairy product-esque qualities. The characters are thinly veiled caricatures to an almost embarrassing degree, particularly the good ol’ Texas boy played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan. If it was this film’s aim to have him spout every single cliche possible, then it has undoubtedly succeeded! The villains of the piece, conniving siblings Claire (Malin Akerman) and Brett Wyden (Jake Lacy) are the token money-mad suits; their motivations are unclear, but do we really care by this point?!

Dwayne Johnson is the star of this show and he has all the charm and charisma to sell this performance, regardless of what is happening around him. Surprisingly, there’s some quite heartfelt moments between him and his gorilla pal, George, and that was a relationship which worked and helped to break up the monster mayhem.

The story isn’t really relevant here, and that is probably a good thing because it makes little to no sense. There’s a thing called CRISPR which edits genetics or something, and an antidote which stops them being angry but doesn’t alter their gigantic size, the bad guys lure the creatures to Chicago with a bat signal or something like that for reasons that no-one cares about. Fact is, we’re here for a humongous (flying?) wolf, a monstrous crocodile-dinosaur-thing, and gargantuan gorilla. Forget the characters, the “plot”, and definitely leave your brain at home, because when the creature carnage begins, Rampage is huge amounts of fun.

Ridiculous, laugh-out-loud funny, terrible, and hugely enjoyable, Rampage is the guilty pleasure that you should feel no guilt in watching. It’s a big-budget B-movie that is exactly what you’re expecting. Sure, it is throwaway, but when you’re having this much fun, you won’t care.

The Verdict
I saw this movie and you should too. Find me a better movie that begins with a mutant rat in space. I’ll wait. In all seriousness, Rampage is terrible, so why am I recommending it? Because Rampage is the perfect antidote to the end of awards season movies, we’ve done our thinking, and now we just want to have a good time, and that’s more than okay sometimes!