Praise4Media #60 - Rampage

Video Game Adaptations are rarely good. You can get films which are super unfaithful and stupid as hell, like the Super Mario Bros. Movie or you could get ones that are faithful, but are equally as underwhelming, like the Ratchet and Clank movie turned out to be. And most of them are financial failures. One that broke that mould, before Detective Pikachu came along was Rampage

Yes, we’re back with The Rock on a video game movie… I’ve never played Rampage… Sorry? But a quick Wikipedia summary tells me you play as a monster and your objective is to destroy the city. OK, a movie would never play out like that, but that’s a fun enough premise to run with, basically a monster movie.

The film made $430m on its $120m budget, although with an additional $140m spent on marketing, it’s unclear whether this actually broke a profit or not. Directing this is Brad Peyton, who’s worked with The Rock before on San Andreas and Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. On the writing team we have Ryan Engle, who’s helped write Non-Stop, Carlton Cuse who co-wrote San Andreas, Adam Sztykial, who co-wrote Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip, poor guy and Ryan J Condal, who co-wrote Hercules, another film featuring the Rock.

The film had a mixed critical reception, it has a 51% Rotten Tomatoes rating, with an average 5.27/10, but audiences seemed kinder, giving it a 73% rating with an average 4.05/5. So, who’s right in this non-debate? Let’s take a look.

We get some opening narration

“In 1993, a breakthrough new technology, known as CRISPR, gave scientists a path to treat incurable diseases through genetic editing”

I’m no scientist, but 2 seconds on Google and I found CRISPR is a term related to genetics itself, rather than technology. However, it is also related to genetic editing to cure disease. I’m not enough of a scientist to explain this in full but it’s interesting, look it up

So, in the universe, genetic editing has been bad, as it can be misused to create WMDs, so guess what’s gonna happen in this film? We open on a satellite, Athena-1, a test subject that was a rat has got loose, killing everyone on board and doing major damage. The survivor, Atkins tells control she’s gonna escape but because these villains are cartoonishly evil, she’s denied entry to the escape pod. Giving anyone outside control to an escape pod seems like a dumb design choice. Only takes bad signal to screw everyone over.

So the Doctor heads to the sample room, collecting 3 of the samples before the Rat Monster damages the hull to critical, she races back to the escape pod, but the rat damages it as she’s about to take off and she burns up on re-entry. OK business leaders, you could’ve had a living employee who you could bribe off, and just reacquire your research, or you have a dead employee and your research scattered across the globe where anyone could find it and trace it back to you. And before you say that won’t happen, that’s literally the plot of the film so this was a bad call.

We cut to the jungle with 3 characters who are so relevant to the film, I don’t care enough to mention them by name. They’re lead by The Rock, who in this case plays Davis Okoye. We’re at the San Diego Wildlife Sanctuary and we’re introduced do a troop of gorillas. One of them is new, named Pabo, Davis is able to calm him down, but then a white Gorilla named George approaches, this causes one of dimwits to panic and leads to an altercation. George saves the guy from Pabo, and we see he is pretty friendly with Davis as they communicate through a form of sign language. But for the dummies in the audience, he enunciates everything he’s saying anyway. Davis convinces him to let Pabo into the troop, as poachers killed his family.

One of the other students is flirty with Davis and thankfully he brushes it off before it gets too uncomfortable. I don’t care if she’s an adult, it’s still a teacher and a student… I don’t need that mental image in my head. His confident is Bolin from Korra, I know he has a character name but he’s gonna disappear soon so I don’t give a sh*t. Debris from the explosion lands in the sanctuary, and the canisters begin leaking a gaseous vapour. George is exposed to said gas.

The next morning, Davis arrives to find Bolin. Hearing that George got into the enclosure for the Grizzly Bears, they enter and find he’s killed them all. George is sitting in a cave, injured from the fight. Davis encourages him to come out and he’s now about the same height as Davis, he quickly retreats back into the cave. The students have found the canister inside the Gorilla enclosure

Meanwhile, in Chicago, our cartoon villains are talking about how project Rampage was a success (???) and they canisters were built to withstand re-entry. One landed in a forest in Wyoming, so their KillersRUs contractors are sent to retrieve them. I should probably name them, they’re Claire and Brett Wyden. We heard Claire earlier during the shuttle scene. She’s the brains of the operation, Brett is dumber and more emotional, and serves as the public face of the company.

We see that the sanctuary has made news, including the canister landing, which means Claire and Brett should know about another sample landing there, but don’t for some reason. Who does is Dr Kate Caldwell aka Moneypenny from Skyfall and Spectre. KillersRUs arrive at the site in Wyoming and find the canister, badly damaged and a bunch of wolf bodies are found near it. Claire says she wants the wolf that did this, dead or alive.

Somehow they manage to get George in a cage, and blood analysis puts lethal concentrations of growth hormones in him. Bolin tells him that people will start asking questions, and in some cases have already. If anyone finds out about this, George is gonna get put down so Bolin agrees to keep it quiet as long as he can. Kate finds her way to the sanctuary and introduces herself to Davis as a scientist at Energine, the company owned by Brett and Claire. Considering what she’s actually doing there, it’s really stupid how secretive she’s being.

She lists off symptoms that George seems to be experiencing, and she’s shown him, he’s grown even more since the morning. So, what genes are here, well there’s Shark they don’t stop growing, the growth rate of a Blue Whale, the strength of a Rhinoceros Beetle and the speed of a Cheetah. OK, I’m willing to suspend my disbelief about this but what confuses is how she managed to pull up this information from her phone, just by searching CRISPR. She does not work at Energyne anymore so it’s not like she has access to that information.

It was Kate who developed a system to rapidly integrate the genetic editing throughout the body. Why she wanted to do that is beyond me, maybe they’ll explain it later. She claims to be able to cure George, who’s getting hungry and the idiots aren’t feeding him. He breaks out of the cage and makes a run for the outside, causing mass panic for the guests who didn’t hear about the news this morning. Davis and Kate try and calm him down, even stopping the police but a helicopter tranqs George from above.

Back with KillersRSoVeryDead, they manage to shoot the wolf from the helicopter, and decide to land, without seeing the body first. We get a brief fakeout as the wolf demonstrates an ability to glide and KillersRSoVeryDead are killed. If course because this is PG-13 a lot of the violence is implied.

So, Davis and Kate are taken to an airfield and we’re introduced to Harvey Russel, a member of the “Other Government Agency” Wikipedia links this organisation to the CIA but I’m not sure about that. He’s cocky for now but also one of the more entertaining parts of the film. He kinda reminds me of Quintin Lance from Arrow, season 1 and 2 Quintin, before character assassination began.

Quick question though, why are Davis and Kate being detained, why are they cuffed with cable ties. We find out on the plane that George also has the regenerative capabilities of the African spiny mouse. Harvey gives us some background on Davis, he has a bit of a career in the military, with lots of redacted files (you’d think being an intelligence officer you might have access to them) and then transferred to an anti-poaching task force.

In a remarkable display of intelligence, they claim to have factored in George’s growth rate, metabolism and blood supply into their calculations in the sedative feed. Of course, we all know George is going to escape anyway, but it’s nice to see that the OGA aren’t being treated as complete morons.

They then find out about the Wolf, named Ralph online because someone liked the Sam Sheepdog cartoons, I guess. You realise Ralph was just Wile E Coyote with a red nose, right? Back on topic, we then get the lowdown on Kate. She was fired from Energyne 2 years ago and was caught stealing company research and spent 13 months in jail. Kate confesses that she can’t actually cure George, only that Energyne was working on a sort of counter-measure to the effects.

Back to our cartoon villains who show that the OGA are cr*ppy agents, as they allowed themselves to be photographed! Anyway, given they’re history with Kate, they suspect she’s planning something. They say she blames them for the death of her brother, something we’ll get back to. They have a ‘chill pill’ to stop the creatures growth and aggression, and the somehow have used the genetic editing to make them respond to a low frequency radio wave. OK, this is where I call bullsh*t, no movie, you don’t get away with that one unscathed. How did they do that, what animal? I’ll wait, no?

Thanks to a massive radio antenna on the roof, hoping to get the Gorilla to bring down the plane. There is usually a limit to how far radio waves would travel right. You’re telling me I can’t get a radio signal in my car I leave the county, yet this radio wave can get into a plane’s hull at 23,000 ft? Anyway, it’s supposed to be agonising, so they’d travel anywhere to make it stop.

We see Ralf Responding and another creatures, from the Gulf of f*cking Mexico doing the same? George hears the signal too and somehow this means he can shake off the sedation. He wakes up and breaks the cage from its clamps before breaking out completely. He’s also bulletproof apparently as the OGA can’t stop him. Davis tries to tranq him, but saves only in rescuing Harvey. An explosive do-dad is hit by gunfire and the pilots are both killed.

Thankfully the Rock incapacitates George, and they evac using parachutes, even taking an unconscious Harvey with him. They pull their shuts as the plane goes down in a fiery explosion. They believe George to be dead but upon inspecting the wreckage they can’t find is body, or anyone else’s I just noticed. Davis finds tracks heading away from the site, George was wounded but survived. Harvey has to contact the department of Defence but lacks signal to do so. He thanks Davis for saving his life.

Back at Energyne, Federal agents come with a warrant to search their computer records. Claire takes control and tries to pass some of the blame onto Kate. This has no impact on the plot whatsoever. Time for some more details regarding backstories. Davis’ history of fighting with wars is what lead him to distrusting… well, just about everyone. He says he found George hiding under a poacher’s truck. When they stopped said poachers, they were in the middle of killing his mother.

As for Kate, she was using genetic editing to help species in the Arctic when she got the word her brother was sick. She knew genetic editing would save him, and then Claire recruited her for Energyne, using her research to create the experiments. She tried to destroy it but was unsuccessful and ended up in jail, her brother died whilst she was in prison.

They’re picked up by the military and we’re introduced to the military asshole in authority. You know the one, the guy who insists on brute force when everyone around him is telling him that’s dumb. Yeah, he’s another one of them, yippee. And we finally get an explanation for the radio trigger, they used Bat DNA, it’s something but I’m still calling it bullsh*t.

They’re escorted out but Davis uses the fact that he’s the Rock to knock out their escort. They need a helicopter to get to Energyne in Chicago, but preferably one not guarded as heavily. Kate suggests a med-evac chopper, because suddenly she knows more about the military than the ex-soldier. OK, she’s a Doctor, but not specifically of medicine, she’s a geneticist. They head there but Harvey guessed they would.

They’re planning to head to Energyne, grab the chill pills and use them to stop the creatures before they level the city. Again, Davis is an idiot to assume a helicopter would have the keys inside, thankfully Harvey hands them over, as thanks for saving his life earlier. He also gives them a phone to contact with them.

Back with the military, shock of all shocks here, their strike fails and they’re all killed by Ralph and George. The asshole general moves forward with his contingency plans, which include rolling in every gun they have, calling in the national guard and evacuating Chicago. Harvey fills Davis in on this using the phone. But Davis worried that the evacuation will happen too slowly, ash he’s right.

George and Ralph are attacking a very much populated city and taking down military helicopters with relative ease, but at least the dog lived! They also soon discover the 3^rd of the creatures, heading upriver. We finally get a look at this monstrosity and it’s huge, the asshole general directs all forces at it but naturally they do jack sh*t.

With downtown now more or less evacuated, asshole military general is ready to drop a bomb that would wipe out half the city. Harvey objects and is kicked out. I don’t know how authority works in these situations but I think a secret agent, particular one with authority to sort out problems similar to this might have some level of authority within the military. Anyway, he gets a file that confirms somehow that there’s a server missing from the FBI sweep that only our 2 cartoon villains have access to.

David and Kate land outside Energyne, thankfully the locks to their science labs are sh*t and Davis just kicks the door down. Thanks to the FBI raid, they can’t access the computers but since they’re all on one system, Kate now with an advance degree in hacking, go figure, can use a thermostat to create a backdoor into their servers and access every file. Unfortunately they’ve scrubbed the files from the main servers.

In spite of it they find the chill pills but are quickly confronted by our cartoon villains, who take the chill pills, aside from one that Kate snuck into her pocket. Claire shoots Davis in the side and takes Kate to the roof at Gunpoint, right as the monsters begin scaling the building. Brett takes off when George arrives and Davis is remarkably OK for a guy who just got shot. They have one chill pill they give it to Claire as she’s about to get eaten.

Harvey confronts Brett, offering to let him go in exchange for the Laptop. Brett makes the exchange and Brett gets crushed by some rubble. Harvey leaves via ‘another exit’ I kinda love how easy he makes it seem, it’s gloriously stupid. Speaking of gloriously stupid, Kate and Davis escape the roof by using the helicopter, minus the tail to glide as the building falls beneath them.

They make it to the ground unscathed, that plan actually worked, I’m as shocked as you. There are still people on the ground, so they want to call off the airstrike but there are still monsters to take care of. Thankfully George has been relieved of his aggressive tendencies, so he can follow. Davis finds a bunch of grenades and heavy weapons and tells Kate to try and contact Harvey to get him to call off the airstrike.

Naturally these weapons have been completely ineffective until now, but some careful planning gets Ralph killed. Kate finds Harvey, rather easily all things considered, and they get the phone needed to call the airstrike off. The third monster is proving more difficult, Davis exhausts his ammo and George, big as he is, isn’t half as big as the third one. Davis notices a weakspot behind the ears and throws some grenades into it, this naturally does nothing and George gets impaled on some spikes.

He’s still live but injured. Thankfully Davis finds a helicopter with the cannon still operational, and missiles. They naturally do next to nothing but it does allow George to get a second wind and stab the creature through the eye, killing it. He’s still injured though, asshole military general calls off the bomb strike and we get the most overused trope in all of fiction, the death fakeout.

And that’s the end of the film, don’t have much time for epilogues in these parts, do we?

The film is dumb, the villains are cartoonish and there are definitely plot-holes, a few of which I point out whilst I was summarising. Maybe they could’ve added a bit more humour if it was a dumb b-movie was kind of tone they were aiming for but the performances are good enough, and the Rock provides his usual charisma to his role.

The special effects, given what this movie entails are pretty good, the monsters all look reasonably realistic, even with daytime city fights. George is the most sympathetic and that’s part of his design as well as his backstory and personality. The other two are relatively forgettable but that’s minor in a monster movie like this

The clichés are ripe here. The asshole military guy, the money-grubbing business types who care more about money than people, the only thing missing was a kid who’s smarter than most of the adults.

The battles themselves are fun enough to watch from a popcorn flick standpoint. You’re not massively invested in them but they do what they set out to do.

Rampage is just fun enough to be dumb fun, with the Rock’s along with Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Harvey providing the charisma that brings it up to enjoyably stupid.

Rating -85%