RAMPAGE

Rampage is based on the 1986 arcade game made by Midway. 

The differences between the movie and the arcade game are that in the arcade game George, Ralph, and Lizzie were humans turned into giant monsters. In the movie, however, it was changed to them being regular animals at first and then quickly growing into monsters. 

On opening weekend, Rampage made #1 in the box office making $34.5 million

Review:

Primatologist Davis Okoye shares an unbreakable bond with George, the albino gorilla who has been in his care since birth. After a rogue genetic experiment gone wrong, George is turned from a gentle ape to a rampaging monster. Along side two other monsters, Ralph the wolf and Lizzie the giant crocodile, George runs amok across North America. Davis must team up with a discredited geneticist to find an antidote that can save George and put an end to Ralph's and Lizzie's rampage.

Ever since the movie, Super Mario Bros., movies based on video games suffer a curse where they are doomed to fail. Rampage is no exception and I didn't expect it to be a good video game movie, however this was a fun monster movie overall. There are parts of the movie that I did enjoy, but Rampage falls flat in the story as it is kind of weak. In the video game, there isn't much of a story to begin with. So trying to come up with any kind of story for a movie based on a story-less game is going to be difficult. The beginning of the movie starts off really good by starting with a dark scene on a space station of an experiment going awry and seeing how George and Dwayne Johnson's character, Davis Okoye, interact. Then half way through the movie after seeing George and Ralph growing bigger, the movie goes down hill. I found myself bored wondering when will the movie get better. You have your usual cliches such as the dumb military not knowing how to fight monsters and an evil corporation, but they make these cliches so over the top that the movie doesn't take itself seriously. It was almost like watching a parody, but even at times I was not even sure if the movie was meant to be a parody or if it was actually trying to be serious. When I looked at this movie as a serious movie I was only disappointing myself and I was hating it (This was coming from months of being disappointed with the earlier movies of this year). Yet, I also had fun watching this movie as a mindless action packed film. Even though Rampage has its flaws, the flaws are not to be taken too seriously. The video games didn't take itself seriously either and it is one of the more well known video games. It was what it was suppose to be. A fun game about monsters destroying buildings and causing mayhem. The movie follows the same concept as well by being a mindless fun movie about monsters causing havoc and mayhem and nothing else. Even when the characters are being over-the-top and cartoonish, I now see it as more of a parody poking fun at the genre. At times though, the humor in Rampage does dry up and gets beaten with a stick making me role my eyes a few times. At least it didn't rely on memes for jokes, but that doesn't make the funny scenes in this movie any funnier when done two or three more times. After a while, all I cared about was seeing all the monster mayhem and Rampage at least delivered on that.

The movie's story is boring, but watching the monsters coming together to cause destruction and the final act where it's a three way free-for-all fight between George, Ralph, and Lizzie was very much needed after being bored for half of the movie. The fight scenes are brutal and out of the three monsters, Lizzie really proves how much of a threat she really is compared to Ralph and George. Lizzie is a powerhouse of a monster packing with a club like tail to smash buildings and her opponents and one hell of a bite that can chomp anything into pieces. Even though Lizzie was changed from a giant lizard to a giant crocodile, Lizzie's design is my favorite design with Ralph in second, and George in last place. What I like about Lizzie's design is that she has all of these different attributes going on such as gills, spiky armor, tusks, and a club like tail as well as being able to climb. Ralph's design is only okay. While it may look like a giant wolf, it has porcupine like quills that he can fire at his opponents with and has the ability to glide like a squirrel. As for George, I wish that they did a lot more with him in terms of design since he is suppose to be the main hero of the movie. George's design is the most simplest out of the three. He is just a giant albino gorilla that knows sign language and has super crazy strength. He doesn't have any other crazy attributes that would make him stand out like Ralph and Lizzie. While I don't mind simple designs, it just looks lazy when compared with the other two monsters in the movie.

Final Thoughts:

While I liked some stuff, Rampage falls short on areas that could have been improved upon if they just tweaked them. The story does get boring midway through the movie and while it acts like a parody at times, the humor is dry and basically dies after the first time. Overall, Rampage is only okay. It isn't great, but it isn't terrible either. It's a mindless fun monster movie you see once on any weekend if you're bored.