Now that is what I call a movie. Rampage, the newest blockbuster team up between Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and director Brad Peyton delivers absolutely everything that you’d expect from a movie based on a video game of monsters destroying a city. Seriously, this movie is so thoroughly entertaining you won’t be able to help from shouting and cheering during the film.
I appreciate when movies understand exactly what they are. This goes for every genre, from musicals letting their characters burst into song in their reality to the use of jump scares in horror films. Rampage is a movie that knows just how ridiculous the premise is and ev eryone rise to match that. There is not an actor in this ensemble who does not dig into their roles with relish. Rampage is worth the ticket price just to see Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Malin Akerman chew the hell out of the scenery. Morgan is so clearly this movie’s MVP and from the moment he walked on screen I could tell he was having a ball.
And that’s what this movie is, a ball. Rampage keeps the many elements of its film in perpetual motion and does not let up from what was a truly harrowing opening. So many of the questions you have about the film that are mainly generated from the trailers are answered in logical ways. How did the canister crash by these animals? A space station doing testing blew up and sent the canisters to the corners of the US. Why are there only three animals affected? Because only three samples survived the space station explosion. Why are the animals destroying Chicago? Well they are being drawn their by a signal. To say much more would get into spoilers but I was happy this movie had a simple story but also managed to be grounded in the rules of its world.