VGFlicks: Rampage (Part 1)

For monsters this big, humans should be akin
to breadcrumbs.

Final film review for now, and yet another franchise I’ve never played: Rampage, an arcade and console classic with games from 1996 onwards. The games are meant to pastiche the kaiju genre, and feature a giant gorilla, a giant wolf and a giant reptile (rights-free Godzilla), born from mutated humans, wreaking havoc on the world, destroying one building, and one city, at a time. I’ll admit I’m not one for the kaiju genre in general; I care more for the humans fighting the threat than for the monsters duking it out. Might be why the film, released to American theaters on April 13th, 2018 and directed by Brad Peyton, appeals more to me.

Well, that and the different take on the genre it represents. I’ll get to that soon enough. This movie is based on a game that didn’t have much in the way of story, so it will be interesting to see what gets added; aside from a woman in a red dress and the three who are turned into monsters, there isn’t much in the way of human characters in the original game (and saying that it has a story would be generous), so the film will likely follow some new protagonists.

There’s no need for a much longer introduction, so let’s jump into this!

The badass

Huh. Usually films that involve space tend to have it as a
major element. Here it's only an entrée. I wished we could
also see this film. Or a short.

We begin on a movie we’ll never see; a scientist fleeing through the half-destroyed interiors of a space station, dead colleagues floating in the Zero-G. Something is chasing her. Her boss refuses to let her leave this horror scenario unless she brings samples of the research that was being conducted there. She grabs three samples, and can barely make it to an escape pod when she’s attacked by a giant rat, closing the door just before it can reach her. It makes some nasty teeth marks on the glass. The pod flies off with the space station self-destructing behind. Unfortunately, the weakened glass doesn’t survive re-entry in the Earth’s atmosphere and breaks, killing the scientist and blowing up the pod. The samples, which survive, end up scattered across the U.S.

Cut to our protagonist, primatologist Davis Okoye, portrayed by Dwayne Johnson, showing the ropes to his anti-poaching team at the San Diego Wildlife Sanctuary. Johnson is a divisive actor. Some like his performances, others think he plays the same generic action protagonist role over and over. His omnipresence doesn’t help matters in the slightest; dude’s everywhere, you can’t escape him.

After three films, he's due for a change of shirt.

Business-wise, he’s a popular actor; doesn’t matter what the critics say of him, his presence in a movie will have people in seats. As for his talent as an actor… he seems to defend his roles well in my opinion. His characters, usually strong action types with a penchant for snark, tend to be certified badasses before they even set foot onscreen. Most have a background as combatants, soldiers, warriors, semi-deities (hi, Hercules and Maui!), nothing to help the impression of him being a one-trick pony. Which… fair, but he does work well even in roles that subvert that general archetype. He’s great in the Jumanji films, where he’s still that muscular adventurer but has to carry the personality and tics of an awkward teenage Jewish kid first, and that kid’s grumpy, confused grandpa second, pulling both off quite well. Even his more action-oriented roles tend to have some degree of emotional depth to them.

Also, he seems so happy to be acting. His passion is contagious. So what if he only does popcorn flicks? I dunno about you but I like to fall back on those when I need a pick-me-up. He starred in the movie adaptations of DOOM and Rampage because he's a gamer and liked the original games. He’s so omnipresent that a current of aversion is growing towards him; I acknowledge that, I’m not quite there yet, but I do think he should turn down some projects now and then and maybe give some new action faces a chance.

Forget "A boy and his dog". A MAN and his best buddy
the albino ape is where it's at.

Doctor Okoye oversees the primate enclosure of the Wildlife Sanctuary. Among the apes present is Davis’s long-time friend George, an albino gorilla rescued at a very young age. George is smart and has learned sign language, which he uses to talk with Davis in ways his normal means of communication can’t convey. He’s a good-natured primate with an immature sense of humor but also has a sense of duty regarding the others in the enclosure, being one of the oldest animals living in it. Dwayne Johnson and Jason Liles, who serves as motion-capture actor for George, learned the sign language and deliver it in a believable way, the former as someone who’s used it for a long time and the latter as an animal who uses it but has the gorilla’s tics as well.

(Actual line from the film) Davis: "I never should've
taught you that." I for one, welcome all apes that lean
to flip the bird!

Yes, the animals, even the most realistic ones, are all CGI. The effects are made by Wētā FX, the company famous for the special effects for several movies that were praised on that aspect. They know their craft and it shows; the primates look so uncanny you could be forgiven for thinking they’re real, trained animals. To say nothing of the other beasts in the film.

Rather than hang out with his colleagues and protégés after work, Davis prefers to go home and relax. That night, the samples crash; one lands in the primate enclosure and is discovered by George, who inhales some of the stuff. A wolf gets the same from another sample that landed in Wyoming. The third sample, which lands in the Everglades in southern Florida, is eaten whole by a crocodile.

Welp, so much for the big friendly George. That didn't last.

The Wydens

He's still friendly. But scared. Poor guy. That said,
he's now bigger than friggin' The Rock.

Davis arrives the next day in a hurry, having received an emergency message from his team. George is found, much larger than before, and having torn a grizzly from the bears enclosure to shreds. The primate is terrified of his newfound aggressiveness, caused by the formula. In George’s home enclosure, the sample’s canister is found in a crater.

Cut to Chicago, home of Energyne, the lab that specializes in gene manipulation. As cited in an opening crawl, the lab uses CRISPR, a real-life genetic engineering technique… that said, the film amplifies the technology’s ability to ridiculous levels. Then again, considering how ridiculous the villains are…

Brett and Claire's first scene serves as a great
establishing moment for both, and- wait.
Is that a Rampage arcade cabinet back there?!?

Meet the Wydens, a brother-sister team. First is Brett Wyden (Jake Lacy), an impulsive idiot, a coward and a character with not a single trace of subtlety. Lacy overacts like he’s playing a Looney Tune. He’s chewing so much scenery, he’s competing with the giant animals eating the city in the climax. The real brains of the operation is Claire Wyden (Malin Ackerman), who manipulates the events from her tower and is as cartoonishly evil as her brother is dumb. If she wasn’t the boss of Energyne, she’d be the mad scientist of the story. Her first act in the film was to tell the survivor on the space station that she couldn’t come back to Earth without the samples, despite the giant murderous rat. Gives you an idea.

They represent the movie quite well: They’re exaggerated, utterly silly, not the least bit realistic. But at least they’re entertaining.

Brett worries that the canisters the samples were stored in can be traced back to them, but Claire isn’t worried; while Brett plays his role as Energyne’s spokesperson to the media about the explosion of the space station, she’ll send a team of mercenaries to Wyoming to find the canister. That report on the news is seen by Katherine Caldwell (Naomie Harris) sees in her LA apartment…

The genius

Good thing the news are always there to pull in new
protagonists into a convoluted story.

The poor gorilla is starving. No surprise, his metabolism is
all out of whack from growing so much, all because of
the gene editing pathogen she helped create. Then again,
she's not the one who decided to make further experiments
in a lab in space to make the advancements dangerous...

At the Sanctuary, George has been isolated from other animals and tested in the Sanctuary’s lab; Davis and his assistants check the results. This level of growth is abnormal. The aggressiveness is also nothing like the George they know. Kate shows up and mentions everything Davis’s team has been seeing. After seeing the poor gorilla, she explains that the company mixed and matched several animal attributes, like the constant growth of sharks, and created a pathogen that can make a living creature grow uncontrollably, with strength and agility increasing as well. Again; CRISPR is a gene-splicing technology capable of many things, but that’s exaggeration.

As will be explained later in the film, Kate used to work for Energyne, working on genetic engineering in an attempt to cure her brother, who suffered from a terminal disease. She wanted to advance mankind through gene splicing; among other things, she’s the one who found a way to make CRISPR act so rapidly and intensely. However, behind her back, the Wydens would take her discoveries and weaponize them. To ensure she doesn’t meddle in their affairs, they had her incarcerated for a year for stealing company property (specifically, the research she didn't want them to turn into a weapon); Kate’s brother died while she was serving her sentence.

Nothing to help George's dislike of guns.

She says she can cure George, but she doesn’t get the time to; the starving gorilla breaks free and, breaking through walls, finds his way out of the building. Before Davis can do anything, cops show up  and a helicopter from Homeland Security shoots the animal with tranquilizer darts, putting him to sleep. The primatologist, the scientist and the gorilla are taken to a plane, where they meet special agent Harvey Russell (Jeffrey Dean Morgan).

Oh, and in case you’re wondering – what happened in the meantime to those mercs hunting down the overgrown wolf? That didn’t go so well. The wolf pounced on their helicopter and killed them all. I’ll note that despite being a silly action film about giant mutated animals, the film often borrows from the codes of horror movies. Quite a few jump scares, and violence more intense than we’d expect from a PG13 rating.

Gruesome death in 3... 2...
Also, hey, that's Joe Manganiello.

The agent

They'd be coming to blows if there weren't so many
armed men around them.

Rounding up this cast of diverse and bizarre characters is this agent from a secret government organization tasked with cleaning the messes left after science went too far. Or, so he claims. Men In Black, or just good ol’ CIA? Who knows? Enjoying the role, taking the film exactly for the goofy romp it is, Morgan wastes no time tossing sarcasm and asserting dominance as Agent Harvey Russell, like yet another villain we must dread in this film. Due to Davis’ hostility towards these people out of fear they’ll kill his gorilla friend, Russell has them taken aboard as well.

Much like with any other complex emotions, it takes a great
deal of acting skills for one to keep their character at just
the perfect amount of "punchable". Morgan nails it.
You wanna punch agent Russell. (For now, anyway.)

During the trip, Russell airs out all the dirty laundry: Everything I explained about Kate earlier (and that she lied about still working for Energyne, but that she did it hoping she could help the poor George), and then Davis Okoye’s secrets. Ex-Army Special Forces, who fought in more wars than he’d wish to remember, who eventually was transferred to an anti-poaching group. See what I meant about Johnson regularly playing roles that are badasses “before they even set foot onscreen”? Also explains why he feels better around animals; he’s seen the worst of humanity. Animals are simpler. Further cementing his stance, we later learn that he rescued George from poachers when the albino was just a baby, and also killed the poachers after they tried to fight back.

Aww, baby George is adorable. And such blue eyes!
Who would be heartless enough to hurt the little thing?
...Oh, right, poachers...

Russell is also aware of the giant wolf, showing footage of the beast and offhandedly mentioning that the Internet has called him Ralph. Why? Because we needed a reason to mention the names of the animals from the original game; adaptations of games this old rely on mythology gags.

It's almost sad that so few of their evil actions aren't too
cinematic. We'll get there, but it'll take a moment...

Meanwhile, the Wydens have become aware of George (still no word on the croc) and are setting up a backup plan. They’re evil, but not self-destructive; they have devised a “chill pill”, an antidote to the mutations that will cease both the growth and the aggressiveness of the affected animals, but not return them back to their original sizes. However, to deliver the cure, they choose to lure the animals with an ultrasound emitted from an antenna on top of their building, which is basically the Willis Tower in Chicago. Yeah, endanger civilians with giant angry beasts all coming towards you at once, great idea! They activate the beacon…

Uh oh.

"...Holy shit!"
"What can I say, except... ♪♫You're welcome!♪♫"

…and much like Ralph, George goes crazy upon hearing the ultrasound, breaking free of his cage and attacking the soldiers on the plane. Davis attempts to calm his down, but from being shot, George throws agent Russell across the cabin, knocking him out. After explosives blow up from bullets, the plane nosedives, and it’s only with some ingenuity that the protagonists prevent George from causing more damage. In true action hero fashion, Davis not only gets parachutes for Kate and himself, but also for Russell, saving the agent’s life. The plane crashes into a field with George still inside. Or not, as while inspecting the remains after landing, they don't find the ape anywhere. He survived, and he’s on his way to Chicago.

He’s on a… rampage, you could say. Ba-dum-tss!

On the plus side, Russell has upgraded from villain to ally, so that’s a nice change. Here’s to hoping we get to see how it impacts the plot from this point on. Or, to be precise… in Part 2!