[rating=1.00]
It’s a fairly well-known fact that writer David Mamet has actors rehearse his dialogue with a metronome. A testament to his relentless pursuit of perfection, it’s a way to measure that precise, calculated cadence he believes his work warrants.
There’s a similar sense of calculation in Rampage, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s latest action movie, but not out of an undying desire for perfection. But more like the script has all the wit and sparkle of something written by an actual calculator.
Based on the 1986 arcade game where players chose a giant ape (George), a giant lizard (Lizzie), or a giant wolf (Ralph) and proceeded to destroy as much of a city block as possible. This included destroying military vehicles and eating people as they fled in terror. As far as video games, the idea of playing as the story’s heel and causing as much reckless terror as possible was unconventional to say the least.
Now, more than three decades later, in an era where movie studios are literally salivating over anything that can satiate those unending pangs of nostalgia, Rampage is retrofitted with human actors to tell its story. That story, however, is contained in a script that’s credited to four writers, and gives the distinct impression that this was a round-robin writing exercise, where each of them took turns churning out a single page, and never once bothered to look at what was written by the other three.
As a result, the film’s tonally all over the place, occasionally presenting itself as a wholesome popcorn movie where Johnson can (once again) lightheartedly quip while showing off The People’s Eyebrow. Other times it almost forays into a kind of dark comedy, where the human characters’ deaths are played for blood-splattered laughs. This absolutely could have worked had they embraced it, but it never wants to commit to that premise for more than a scene or two at a time.
The rest of the movie is a thrown-together plot strung together with techie exposition that has all the warmth and personality of something that was spit out by an AI program and translated from binary by another AI program.
While Johnson’s increasingly busy work schedule seems to allow him his most by-the-numbers performance since his days in the wrestling ring, Jeffrey Dean Morgan seems to be the only one having any real fun. Granted, he’s just playing the character of Negan, trading in his black leather jacket for a black G-Man suit, but at least he’s seems vaguely aware of this ridiculous goddamn premise and decides to chew up as much scenery before the trio of monsters lay waste to it in the spectacle of the third act.
Clearly no one’s lining up to see Rampage for any kind of thoughtful dissection of its overarching themes or some kind of greater meaning, but some people (*raises hand*) were hoping for a mindlessly fun, ‘so bad it’s good’ kind of thing. Instead, we’re given this utterly lifeless spectacle produced in a creative void — outside of a couple winking nods to the arcade console that inspired it.
Rampage could have easily been so bad it’s good, or it could’ve leaned into some of those dark comic instincts. Instead it’s just a thrown-together collection of action movie cliches and subpar scenes that desperately clings to the idea that Johnson’s charisma will carry it. It does not.
Rampage is now playing in theaters everywhere.
