Rampage Movie Review: Dwayne Johnson Takes on Giant Animals in this Harmless, Fun Entertainer

After delivering a worldwide hit in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Dwayne The Rock Johnson returns for what is another chaotic fun entertainer in Rampage. Based on a popular arcade game by the same name, Rampage is directed by Brad Peyton who previously made the disaster porn, San Andreas, again with Dwayne Johnson in the lead. Rampage also stars Naomie Harris, Malin Akerman, Jake Lacy, Joe Manganiello, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Here's our review,

Davis Okoye (Dwayne Johnson) is a former special force officer turned primatologist working for a national park. Not a fan of human interaction, Okoye most trains primates in the park and is especially close to a white albino gorilla called George (amazing motion capture performance by Jason Liles). When a space experiment, involving a giant rat, goes wrong, a dangerous toxin is released into Earth and is breathed in by George. Since then, the gorilla begins to grow in size, much to the shock of Okoye, and goes on a destructive rampage in Chicago, joined by two other recipients of the toxins, a giant flying wolf and a monstrous alligator. It is upto Okoye to stop them, with the help of some shady government agents and a couple of crazy scientists.

A couple of weeks back, we had Pacific Rim: Uprising, a movie about giant robots fighting giant monsters. You don't expect anything Kubrickian about such a premise, you just go to see robots vs monsters. Well, Rampage is a much better movie compared to the lacklustre sequel to Pacific Rim. For one it has the added charisma of Dwayne Johnson, whose screen presence cannot be ignored. You just can't your eyes off the screen even when The Rock does nothing but stand and smolder. It is not that he is doing anything different here - it is just that he doesn't need to do anything different.

Rampage knows what it is and doesn't want to be anything other than that - a fun monster movie where there is a chaos and destruction. It is a treat to see the monster animals have a go at humans and then at each other, as the city of Chicago gets destroyed in the process (For once, New York is spared). The last twenty minutes, especially, is completely paisa-vasool if you are in the theatre just to see these monsters beat the shit out of each and Dwayne Johnson playing the saviour in between.

I also digged the scenes between Okoye and George, finding a surprising poignancy in their bonding that I never expected in a movie like Rampage. The action scenes are well-executed with some really good special effects. The monstrous animals are all rendered fine and are effective, especially in the climatic portions.

The length could have trimmed a bit as it takes a really long time to get to the good bits. BTW, that space station sequence was so awkward!

Among the supporting case, Jeffrey Dean Morgan feels like he is still on Negan mode from The Walking Dead, delivering another smarmy performance. Entertaining, nevertheless! Naomie Harris is good as the empathetic genetic engineer who helps out Okoye, but her character feels half-baked. Malin Akerman is decent in her role of Rampage project head, and Jake Lacy as her moronic brother has a few hilarious moments.

Yay! 

- Dwayne Johnson

-  The special effects

-  A harmless entertainer

- Morgan's hammy peformance

- Final 20 minutes

Nay!

- Needs some trimming

- Some of the supporting characters are under-utilised

- Nothing path-breaking about it

Final Thoughts

No two words about it, Rampage is a fun entertainer worth your popcorn if your expectations only revolve around giant animals beating the crap out of each other. With the added bonus of Dwayne Johnson's charismatic leading man, Rampage is recommended to while away two hours with your friends, seeing some fun monster action.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 13, 2018 01:26 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).