Rampage: The Rock Is A Magic Man

I'm convinced that Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson made a deal with the Devil because there's no reason the dude should be a huge as he is. I mean, seriously... no one actually wanted to see the new Jumanji movie. Most scoffed that it looked like a cheap knock off that sullied the late Robin Williams' name. Yet, it made a TON of money and no one walked out of the movie hating it. For the good part of the 20-teens, The Rock has been able to smolder his way through movies and make us love him. And none of the movies are all that great is the thing! With a less affable actor on board, they wouldn't have made shit. He single-handedly revitalized the Fast and Furious franchise. Vin Diesel's career was all but over and then came this mountain of a man to breath fresh life into an already exhausted franchise. Central Intelligence was just okay, Baywatch was humorous at best, hell, the dude made a damn Hercules movie fun! He's able to take mediocre source material and turn it into solid box office gold. Rampage is no different. This movie is bad. And yet... I had a great time watching it. Thanks, in large part... to the man, the myth, the rampager... Dwayne Johnson.

The plot of the film... well, the plot of the film matters little. The Rock is a monkey doctor. Or a monkey wrangler. He's a monkey taker-carer and his albino gorilla, George, is his best friend. A pathogen created by a shady company is aboard a space station. The space station explodes. The containers holding the pathogens make it through Earth's atmosphere without burning up and land in the zoo next to George's enclosure. He ingests the pathogen and it turns him humongous and angry. The pathogen also lands in the wilderness where a wolf inhales the green chemical as well as a swamp where it affects a gator. Enter an ex-employee of the shady company, Dr. Caldwell (Naomie Harris) who knows how to find the cure for big ol' George. Enter dickhead, self-proclaimed "cowboy" government agent Harvey Russell (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) to take over the "situation" and totally mess everything up. Enter head of the evil corporation Claire Wyden (Malin Akerman). Through this laundry list of people, they inadvertantly lead huge, angry George, evil flying wolf, and croc the size of a football field to the middle of the city where they, indeed, RAMPAGE the shit out of it.

Rampage reunites The Rock with his San Andreas director Brad Peyton, so we already know the two have some sort of chemistry and together can make a fun disaster-type movie. Instead of bad weather, we've got mutant animals rampaging through town. But, the movie is bad. It's really, really bad. But, and I'm sure you've already realized this-- it's fun bad. It's fun to laugh at how bad the movie is until the monsters do their destruction and then have to (of course) fight one another. The Rock is really there to keep us happy in our seats, so we don't get the urge to walk back to the box office and demand our money back. Because it's really, really bad. The dialogue, in particular, is the worst part. Evil Claire is there to spell out in excruciating detail her evil plan. Harvey is there to do a piss-poor southern accent and grin like a moron all the while spouting cowboy cliches and causing minor conflict for The Rock. Caldwell is there to look good next to The Rock and give his character answers to lingering questions he has. And all of it is junky and schlocky and bone-headed... but damn it if I didn't have a really good time watching the movie.

There is a significant amount of destruction caused within the film and wayyyyy more casualties than I expected, and some of the fights with the "monsters" are a little shaky and fast... but because The Rock runs around fighting back with them-- it works. He saves the movie from being just another forgettable creature feature. The latest Godzilla was a mess and arguably worse than the hated 2008 Matthew Broderick incantation... but I'm willing to bet had they cast The Rock in that film... it'd have made triple the money and be remembered as America's best Godzilla movie ever made. As strange as it sounds-- a movie about a giant albino gorilla, an evil flying wolf, and a massive teeth'd out crocodile shouldn't fail no matter who the star is. But without The Rock... the movie wouldn't have made any money, any sense, and anyone leave the theater feeling like they had a hell of a good time.

Look, video game movie adaptations suck. The Rock doesn't. You figure it out.

C