I remember being excited for the 2018 Rampage film and immediately forgetting all about it. At this time, I was working a crazy schedule and didn’t have time to see a movie. There were a bunch of things that I missed out on during this time.
I’m pretty sure I watched a few reviews for the movie, but I don’t remember those either. The movie didn’t leave much of an impression on me, so I forgot it existed. I wonder how many people remember this movie, or get it confused with every other Dwayne Johnson action movie.
I’m interested to see what was added to the game’s plot. The series was rebooted twice, and the plot was always paper thin. There are a few things I’m expecting to see: a corrupt corporation, three mutated monsters, and a city being destroyed.
Rampage the movie had a budget of 120-140 million dollars, and made 428 million dollars. It looks like it made enough to get a sequel maybe, but that hasn’t happened so far. The Rock plays the same character he’s been playing for the last ten to fifteen years, there is a Lady Scientist, and a government agent. Those are our heroes. Let’s go over the movie’s plot.
Plot Summary
The movie starts in space with a genetic experiment that has gone sideways. So, genetic engineering has been outlawed, so this corporation, Energyne, has been doing these experiments on a multi-billion dollar space station. Anyway, three samples of the genetic research get off the space station before it blows up.
These samples land in a few places across the US. This is also when we meet up with The Rock and George. George is a white-hair gorilla living in a San Diego wildlife preserve. This is when we learn that The Rock has taught George sign language.
George gets exposed to the genetic experiment and starts to grow. A wolf and an alligator get infected as well. I’ll just call them George, Ralph (wolf) and Lizzie (alligator) from here on out.
George is being taken care of by The Rock, and a Lady Scientist who shows up. I don’t remember her name, and it doesn’t really matter. Eventually, George breaks free and goes on a mini rampage, which is stopped by “the government,” and Russell, a generic government agent, arrests The Rock and Lady Scientist.
Meanwhile, Energyne sends a team of wannabe badass mercenaries to Wyoming to kill Ralph. This goes about the way you should expect. The mercenaries are killed off and the owners of Energyne devise a different plan.
Remember Lizzie? Well, the movie doesn’t. She is swimming; apparently, no one cares about the giant mutant alligator wandering around. Don’t worry; Lizzie reappears when we get to the city.
Energyne uses a frequency to lure George, Ralph, and Lizzie (who they apparently don’t know about) to Chicago. Their plan is that the military will kill Ralph, and George will die in a plane crash. By the way, George is being transported to somewhere by plane.
The plane crashes. The Rock, Lady Scientist, and Russell survive. I wanted to say more about it, but the whole thing was so ridiculous I can’t do it justice. George also survives the crash because the genetic experiment has given the creatures a healing factor. There are limits to it, but they can recover from non-life threatening injuries.
Let me just take a second to explain. If the creature gets stabbed in the heart, decapitated, or has their brain damaged, then they will die. This does come up later in the movie.
The three creatures converge on Chicago. This is when the movie remembers that Lizzie is in the film. The two Energyne people get killed, and their building gets destroyed as George, Ralph, and Lizzie try to stop the signal. During this, George gets a cure.
This cure doesn’t turn him back to normal. He is still considerably larger, but he isn’t aggressive anymore. From here, George and The Rock, after he dawns the same dirty white t-shirt he’s been wearing for most of his movies, team up to fight Ralph and Lizzie. The Rock tricks Ralph and Lizzie into fighting, and then George and The Rock defeat Lizzie.
Then we end with a little comedy. It seems like they were setting up a sequel, but I have no idea how they would do that. There are more monsters in the Rampage series, but I’m unsure how they would get them here.
Similarities and Differences with the Games
Yeah, there are a few. We have three monsters, a corrupt corporation, and a city being destroyed. There are a lot of differences.
The three monsters are mutated humans in the games. Their origins differ from game to game, but the three originals are George the gorilla, Lizzie the lizard, and Ralph the wolf. In the movie they’re just mutated animals.
I like the way the game does this better. You could’ve had some crazy body horror in the movie, or something like that. I’m not sure why they went with this direction.
In the games, Scum Labs is responsible for mutating the original three humans, and a bunch of others. They weren’t genetic experiments that did it, it was being exposed to toxic waste, contaminated food, and horrible workplace conditions.
I think George might have been a scientist in the first game from 1986. I could have that wrong, but the two reboots have changed his origin. Basically, their story has changed a bunch of times, so when the movie changed things it wasn’t that big of a deal.
The movie only has them destroying Chicago. Depending on the game, you’re destroying cities across the US, the world, other planets, and even in different time periods. The motivations for why the monsters are doing this vary from game to game.
The themes from the games are in the movie. This is a fairly faithful adaptation, even if they tend to forget about the monsters, especially Lizzie. The utter disrespect for one of the few female kaiju is truly shocking.
Bullets Mean Nothing to The Rock
In one of the dumber moments, The Rock gets shot. He manages to shrug this off and is able to fight the monsters at the end. It is explained that the genetic experiment gave the monsters a healing factor, but at no point did anyone say that The Rock’s character did.
They spend a fair amount of time stroking The Rock’s ego by making him out to be a badass. He is a special forces badass who got involved in hunting poachers. This is how he found George and brought him back to the US.
He acts like his gunshot wound is hurting him for a little bit, but then he is able to shrug it off. By the end of the movie, it has been completely forgotten. I don’t know why this bothers me, but it is strange that he collapses from being shot and gets magically healed at the end of the film.
Final Thoughts
This is an alright movie. As a giant monster film, it isn’t as good as one of the Godzilla films but it is a decent alternative. I probably won’t remember it in a year or two.
The CGI is hit and miss, and there are times when I thought it looked good. The monsters each look very cool, and I like how they tried to give Ralph and Lizzie different powers. I’m unsure why they didn’t give George super powers like Ralph’s ability to glide and shoot quills from its tail.
I didn’t like a few of the changes to the monster’s origin. It would’ve been better if they were mutated humans. Being genetic experiments is interesting, but I liked the plot of the games more.
If you liked this post, please check out my reviews for Resident Evil and Resident Evil: Apocalypse.