VGFlicks: Rampage (Part 2)

Continuing from Part 1; go read it if you haven’t.

The military

Their current size stands at "pretty damn big".
Inching ever closer to "monstrously big".

The giant animals are on their way to Chicago, breaking everything in their fits of rage. Claire and Brett Wyden, still at Energyne, are monitoring their progress, while distracting agents from the FBI who come to inspect their records. Claire makes sure to blame Kate Caldwell for the current mess. Meanwhile, Johnson – no, wait, I mean Davis Okoye – has a heart-to-heart with Kate while they wait for transportation, called by Harvey Russell, to come pick them up from the hayfield they’ve ended up in.

The three are taken to a military base, where they’re briefed on the rampage. George the albino gorilla and Ralph the wolf somehow met each other on the way to Chicago and, instead of fighting, kept going in the same direction together, which doesn’t make sense as members of such different species.

I had to do some geography work for this review!

Try reasoning with the army. It's hard. Especially if you're
the protagonist, you know what's going on, and they don't.
Then, it's not hard, it's freaking impossible.

Not sure where in the U.S. they actually met, but one of them must have gotten lost on the way. Kate concludes that the giant animals are being called to Chicago by a transmission that irritates them. Underestimating the threat level, Colonel Blake (Demetrius Grosse) has Davis and Kate taken elsewhere by the FBI for interrogation, likely a result of Claire Wyden’s earlier lie. Davis does manage to get the MPs off his back, first by trying to convince them to let them go… and when that doesn’t work, he just beats them up. He and Kate sneak around the base and steal the base’s medical helicopter, with help from agent Russell, who hands them the keys and a device to stay in touch.

Primatologist, ex-soldier, and he can pilot? He's a keeper.

While our protagonists fly towards Chicago, the military tries another explosive tactic against the animals, but only makes them angrier. This, finally, convinces them to evacuate the city. It’s probably too late for that. Once again, in a movie where only the main characters really know what’s going on, the military intervenes and makes everything worse. There would probably be a very interesting film analysis to be made about that (and how often it happens), but I’d be way out of my depth.

The beasts

Well, that's just two different genetically-modified wolves.

The helicopter piloted by Davis arrives in Chicago at the same time as the animals, who proceed to break everything. George is three stories tall, and so is Ralph – but the wolf looks a lot bigger due to being a quadruped. Also, George still looks like a regular gorilla, yet the canine has a whole bunch of powers gained from mutations; idea being that due to the mutagen, they’ve kept on rapidly evolving, gaining a bunch of traits to better face what could threaten them. OK, sure. George isn't as different because most of his time as a mutating animal was spent in cages. Of course there’s also an attempt to have the primate look similar to how he started, so that the audience can still root for Davis to save him.

There it finally is, the NotZilla of the story. I appreciate that
the film kept its final appearance secret, unlike several
pieces of promotional material.

Hey, remember the crocodile I’ve barely mentioned the whole time? Nobody knew about that one. Well, she just arrived through the Chicago River. How she went unnoticed from the Gulf of Mexico to Lake Michigan, even though that’s solid land mass the whole way, will remain a mystery. Oh, and for added points, she’s at least twice the size of the other two, due to eating whole the sample she found, whereas the gorilla and the wolf only got sprayed with the mutagen. Topped by Davis’ reaction from seeing her emerge: “Well, that sucks.” A reaction that’s right between “I’ve seen it all” and “you’ve gotta be kidding me”. At the military base command center, Colonel Blake orders all personnel to fight the croc – Lizzie – and prepares to launch a MOAB to drop on the city; Russell interjects but Blake tells him to leave, so the agent heads out towards Chicago as well.

He still looks and acts punchable as Hell, but this time he's
annoying the people who are being a hindrance to the
good guys, so... that helps, I guess.

Of course Brett is too cowardly to shoot a huge dude.
Nah, a woman has to do it. Also, red dress.

Davis and Kate get to Energyne’s labs first and break in, finding samples of the antidote. Meanwhile, Brett and Claire prepare to evacuate on their own helicopter, with Claire even choosing to put on a… God damn it, can these two be more smug on top of being evil and stupid? A red dress? You’re not going to a high society soirée, Claire Wyden, you’re leaving a city that your monsters are destroying! They however spot the intruders and intercept them at gunpoint, taking back the samples. Claire even shoots Davis in the side when he refuses to follow them. The beasts are scaling the tower, so the Wydens take Kate hostage and head to the helicopter.

Eating someone this nasty? Poor ol' George is gonna
have a bad stomachache the next day.

Before they can embark, mega-George arrives and Brett, ever the coward, runs back down with all of the research work. After being rescued by Davis (a bullet in him? ‘Tis but a scratch!), Kate, who had managed to keep one antidote sample, shoves it in Claire’s bag and pushes her at George, who grabs the woman and eats her whole. Jesus. (Fun fact: In the original Rampage game, the first victim of the monsters is a woman in a red dress. Yep, this is another mythology gag. Forced, but I’ll take it.) Meanwhile, on the ground floor, Brett is intercepted by agent Russell (…how did he get there so fast?), who convinces him to hand over the laptop with all of the incriminating evidence along with Claire’s pet rat. Cowardly, turncoat and stupid, Brett agrees before running outside, where he is promptly crushed by falling debris.

Alright, the monsters have been dealt with. On to the animals, now.

Lizzie

Can we get somebody with an actual PhD in physics to
explain all the ways in which this makes no sense?

Due to the attack by the beasts, the tower is tumbling down. In one of those signature silly action movie ideas that go “screw physics, this is gonna look cool as Hell”, Davis saves himself and Kate by getting into the broken helicopter and floating just over the building while it’s falling, getting to ground safely. I swear this could have been in a Fast & Furious film.

What's the tagline again? "Big meets bigger"?
Make it "Big meets bigger meets biggest".

Somehow, the wolf flying is the most unrealistic thing
in a movie about goddamn giant modified animals.

The two are fine. Kate evacuates in a Humvee to find agent Russell and call off the air strike, seeing as there are still civilians in the city. Davis stays behind with George, emerging from the debris, and on whom the antidote worked – really fast, at that! – turning him back into the friendly ape he used to be; the job isn’t over, still got Ralph and Lizzie to deal with. The crocodile is bigger, but the primate has the advantage of opposable thumbs and enough intelligence to use weapons against her. The wolf? He can fly. Why? Because. Johnson’s “again, you gotta be goddamn kidding me” expression sells it. But that’s a moot point, because Ralph is quickly dispatched, tricked into jumping towards Lizzie, who effortlessly beheads him and eats the head. …One down, I guess!

Guns don't work, grenades slightly work, missiles barely
work... this boss fight is missing a clear weak point.

But now, there’s still Lizzie, and that’s not gonna be easy. All Davis can do is run or grab any high-damage military weaponry to attack. Not that it does much. George, by his great size, is a lot more capable of hurting the croc. The action hero also has smarts, so he finds ways to deal damage of his own, like throwing an entire grenade belt into the croc’s gills. Still very much alive (and angry), she attacks with a tail tip covered in spikes. George grabs the tail before it can hit his friend, but the giant lizard lifts the giant gorilla and tosses him into an exposed rebar. While the croc and gorilla fight, Davis makes it to a fallen army helicopter and shoots bullets and even anti-tank missiles at the lizard. That’s still not enough! When it seems all is lost and Lizzie has the hero cornered, George arrives wielding the same rebar and plants it into her skull through her eye, killing her at last.

The joys of opposable thumbs and ape intelligence!

San Diego is gonna need a bigger Wildlife Sanctuary.

Looking over the scene, the military aborts the air strike. George, exhausted, goes to rest against a building in what seems to be his final moments. While soldiers come to rescue more civilians, agent Russell and Kate arrive in time to see the primatologist mourn his friend. …Or not, as it turns out George was faking it to prank his buddy. All happy that this is over, the four walk away, with George helping some people down from the half-destroyed buildings. (He sure is easily forgiven after all that’s happened, even if he wasn’t himself due to the mutagen…) Anyway, roll credits.

Final thoughts

Sometimes, a silly action movie is all you need. On this, Rampage delivers. I struggle to stay mad at this film when all it wants is to entertain, and actually does it well. As an adaptation, the film takes immense liberties with the source material, to the extent where there wasn’t really a point to compare to the original arcade game. We have the gorilla, we have the Godzilla-wannabe, we have the wolf, we have the woman in a red dress, and we have massive destruction of a city. Yep, all the basics are here. Not like there’s much to work off of.

Well-made emotional core with actors taking the job
seriously... paired up with cartoonish evil and sheer silliness.

Everything is so, so, so silly. We have the emotional core of Dwayne friggin’ Johnson caring for and trying to protect his friend the CGI gorilla who becomes huge, aggressive, and a national risk; and we have that genius scientist who created basically magical DNA modifiers to save her brother, and now fights to prevent her creation from being used for nefarious purposes. So, y’know, some emotion. And both Johnson, Naomie Harris and Demetrius Grosse work their role well. Perhaps a little too seriously even, making them clash weirdly with the nonsensical premise and the other characters, who borderline act like they belong more in a cartoon – the Wydens and agent Russell. Malin Ackerman loved to be able to play a full-on villain, Jake Lacy does not take his performance seriously in the slightest, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan? He became an actor wishing he’d someday be in a giant monster movie, so he’s having the time of his life. Living his dream! We have those who took the silly film seriously and those who don’t. Makes the tone weird from time to time, but doesn’t impact the quality too much.

At the very least, this film focuses on humans dealing with the bizarre threat at the center of the plot, and even gives us a good reason to care for one of the “monsters” (an animal, friend of the protagonist, changing against his will), so it succeeded where a lot of media in the Kaiju genre failed to get me invested.

I think I would have taken Malin Ackerman and Jake Lacy
being much more involved in the story and being even more
evil. This story is already about giant monsters, it's not like
we're anywhere close to reality anyway.

Horror notes? Yeah, the giant wolf delivers. That moment is
intense.

The visuals are a treat; the sheer amount of detail on the animated creatures (say what you want about how dumb it is, but there was clearly a lot of thought on how to change the animals based on what they did once mutated), the rampages themselves, and of course the scale of the damage, especially in the climax. It takes a moment for the film to fully embrace the action movie silliness, with the first half of the film sort of hiding Davis Okoye’s badass past, and just going nuts in the second half. I do appreciate the comedic moments as well as the horror notes that are peppered throughout without going overboard. There’s a small number of inconsistencies through the film, a couple of plot holes even I could notice rather easily – but outside of that, the story’s fine, constantly powered by the aforementioned emotional core.

Naomie Harris is a pretty important part of the story, but it
does feel like she spends a chunk of her lines expositing
about what, exactly, that weird-ass composite was made of.
(Hint: Something like 12 different animals' unique abilities.)
Makes sense? No, no matter how hard the film tries.

Grab your treats, you're in for a ride.

It is the textbook example of a popcorn blockbuster flick. Much as I like what’s thought-provoking and deeply significant, I won’t knock a popcorn flick that succeeds in its mission to entertain. Not employing “turn your brain off” as I don’t like the expression, but it’s a film that plays up the ridiculous of its own premise to the benefit of the audience. A dumb but well-made film is nice from time to time. I can think of so many examples of dumb films that do not have that level of heart and desire to make a competent product behind them, and Rampage isn’t among those.

That’s all for the film reviews this year – just took two months instead of one. Well, hopefully the video game reviews can start soon!