Rampage
Directed by:
Brad PeytonCinematography:
Jaron PresantComposer:
Andrew LockingtonCast:
Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Malin Åkerman, Joe Manganiello, Jack Quaid, Jake Lacy, Marley Shelton, Breanne Hill, Jason Liles (more)VOD (3)
Plots(1)
Primatologist Davis Okoye, a man who keeps people at a distance, shares an unshakable bond with George, the extraordinarily intelligent, silverback gorilla who has been in his care since birth. But a rogue genetic experiment gone awry mutates this gentle ape into a raging creature of enormous size. To make matters worse, it’s soon discovered there are other similarly altered animals. As these newly created alpha predators tear across North America, destroying everything in their path, Okoye teams with a discredited genetic engineer to secure an antidote, fighting his way through an ever-changing battlefield, not only to halt a global catastrophe but to save the fearsome creature that was once his friend. (Warner Bros. US)
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Reviews (8)
An oversized gorilla, a wolf and a crocodile meet in Chicago and totally destroy it. Sounds good, right? But before that happens, you're in for a bunch of uninteresting characters, not-very-functional humour and a hackneyed plot. Oh, and the final battle could have been better, too, with a fun color palette and some ideas. In the context of dumb and loud action movies, Rampage is inoffensively average. But if you don't watch it, probably nothing will happen at all.
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A Godzilla spin-off that from the start comes across as a smiling distant relative from the mother's side. The atmosphere is on a jolly wave, with sleazy baddie Malin Akerman, good cop Jeffrey Dean Morgan and charismatic ex-Marine Dwayne Johnson battling the digital vermin. Add to that a faithful recreation of Chicago, which is destroyed probably for the 90th time. The visuals are sexy, no doubt, but there is no Godzilla poetics, no atmosphere, no innovation of the genre. Basically a family-friendly destruction movie for a Saturday afternoon. And theoretically to the cinema, if one turns a blind eye.
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I've seen two Brad Peyton movies with Dwayne Johnson, both of which were stupid and didn't entertain me much. This one is also dumb, but I enjoyed it a bit more. It ticked along and was really all about monsters getting mauled and the main characters surviving, all as spectacularly and heroically as possible. From that perspective, I enjoyed watching Rampage much more than this year's Godzilla: King of the Monsters, although it's no gem either. But whatever.
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An asylum monster flick with a monstrous budget, Rampage is a bit of technically perfect mind candy with high-quality 3D and beautiful monsters that we enjoy the fullest both in lush greenery and in the concrete jungle of Chicago. But to be really satisfying, this movie would need a more personalized director’s touch, whether conceptual (Cloverfield, Godzilla) or at least superficially visual (Michael Bay). Rampage has purely mechanical, sexless direction, wants to satisfy everyone, does not want to offend anyone and, unfortunately, doesn’t even try to be surprising.
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Rampage works best on first viewing and especially in the cinema, for which this audiovisual orgy with oversized creatures was primarily created. In terms of screenwriting, the film has little to surprise, leaving the viewer to marvel at the bizarre visuals and the various abilities of the mutant giants, whose hobbies include destroying cities and devouring their inhabitants. I liked the casting of the swaggering The Rock, the likeable Naomie Harris and the cowboy Jeffrey Dean Morgan, though the villains seemed lacking in charisma. In the end, though, it's a satisfying hundred minutes in the cinema anyway (it doesn't work so well on a second viewing on a home PC), during which you can switch off your brain quite blithely and enjoy this monstrously monstrous piece of work.
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