Rampage: Furia animale

I'm not familiar with the game and watched the film without knowing its origins. For those Gen Xers who recall the original Godzilla, you'll be having a bit of deja vu with this film. The Rock always draws an audience despite being on the wrong side of politics this year. Men like that are still attractive and that's really all they're good for. That's sarcasm, for those getting all worked up.

The film itself had some well-placed humor though nothing too overt. George, the albino gorilla, relaces the family dog here in the sense that he's the cutie pie that makes it a good ending as the film wraps up. Johnson delivers his usual testosterone & brawn surrounded by what I can only describe as massive CGI-created chaos. For being 2018, I was actually slightly disappointed in the quality. The monsters, including the mutated gorilla, didn't move as realistically as I expected. Perhaps the technical team was going more for detail in the features, which were impressive.

People call the plot thin but I'm just wondering what plot they're looking for in a film about monsters destroying a city. This one does an acceptable job of imagining a private engineering company launches a space craft into orbit in an attempt to ensure their experiment is contained away from mankind. That doesn't go to plan.

There is a handful of main actors who all sell their character successfully.

It's not a film most adults would pay to see without at least one teen egging them on. It's entertaining as an unpaid offering on Freevee.

Every single cliche of an action/horror/adventure flick rolled up into one. The charisma of the two big guys (Dwayne and George) carry the entire movie. This movie is not going to change your life, but it will keep you mildly amused.

Rampage is an unpretentious fun popcorn film. It is worth it just to see a three way fight between a DNA altered Gorilla, Wolf (who can fly) and an Alligator.

Dwayne Johnson is primatologist Davis Okoye. He is also ex special forces and he once saved an albino silverback gorilla George when it was a baby out in the wild as its mother was slaughtered by game hunters.

When some highly sensitive and dangerous samples that are experimented up in space land on earth, the infected animals grow in size and mutate.

George mutates, he grows in size and strength and heads for Chicago with the others because of a single transmitted by the corporate villains who are conducting the illegal experiments. Davis helped by a genetic engineer Dr Kate Caldwell (Naomie Harris) need to track down an antidote to control George and stop the rampage which is destroying Chicago.

The film has shades of King Kong and Godzilla. The villains who are siblings are rather cartoonish but Malin Akerman seems to be having fun.

It is not a deep film, the script is not great but it is a mindless, cheesy and enjoyable film with plenty of mayhem.

A movie about an old arcade game starring the Rock? Count me in. I went in with my brain shut off, and got a couple chuckles and, for the most part, everything I expected.

"Why did they miss the opportunity to name this movie "Wolf Blitzer"?". Dwayne Johnson is not just the gentle giant, he is the likeable giant who talks softly and carries a big stick AND has the brains to boot. That pleasing voice of his that is almost broadcast quality helps too. So he is all of that in this film that carries few surprises, but if you like Johnson and you are in the mood for a smash-em-up film that is pretty much paint by numbers with predictable supporting characters out of central casting, this should fit the bill.

Johnson plays a primatologist who befriends a silver backed gorilla named George, and the two communicate using sign language. But one night, from a destroyed space station, three canisters loaded with a gene mutating pathogen land on earth and in - of course - the United States. If they landed in China, Russia, and Afghanistan this would be a much different movie! One canister exposes George, another a wolf, and another a crocodile in the Everglades. Cue evil corporate baddies, the military who can be both a help and a hurt in these situations, a complete misrepresentation of CRSPR technology, and, of course, the mutated wolf flies.

Like I said, if you just want to put your brain on hold this is not a bad time passer and pretty much gives you what you expect in a routine action film.