Monster Mash: Rampage

Warner Bros. Pictures

1/5 Stars

It goes without saying that Rampage features plenty of ridiculous things, but for me the most ridiculous moment in this whole ridiculous film is the fact that the Rampage arcade game apparently exists in the film's universe. That little visual gag is just one of the many dumb things that happen in this supremely dumb movie.

Based on the aforementioned arcade game, Rampage is about a secret genetic experiment gone wrong which ends up infecting three unsuspecting animals (a gorilla, a wolf and an alligator). This causes them to increase rapidly in both size and aggression and now, only a man built like a monster (Dwayne Johnson) can stop them before they destroy an entire city.

For being based on a game about senseless destruction the film is very light on destruction, saving all of its city-destroying mania for the very end. For most of its runtime the film focuses more on the human characters than the monsters, which would be fine if the human characters had anything interesting to say or do. I've mentioned before that Rampage is dumb (with lines like "those guys you call 'Killers R Us?' He's the 'Us'"), but I didn't mention just how much of it is so inconsequential. A character gets shot only to show up in the next scene with no apparent injuries, a special agent (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, one of the highlights of the film) seems to magically appear wherever the plot needs him. It's not that I can't enjoy a movie for being dumb, but it at least has to be entertaining and Rampage doesn't have nearly enough entertainment to make the dumb worthwhile.

Directed by: Brad Peyton // Written by: Ryan Condal, Ryan Eagle, Carlton Cuse and Adam Sztykiel // Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Joe Manganiello, Malin Akerman and Jake Lacy // 115 minutes