Capsule Summary (minimal spoilers):

Rampage is yet another video game turned into a movie. Human beings are mutated into giant monsters – an Ape, a Lizard, and a Wolf, to be precise. The object of the game was to smash all the buildings and stay alive while the humans attack. Pretty straightforward, no?

Well, this movie has a premise, and if you accept how ludicrous it all is, actually works. Animals mutate into giant monsters, and go on a rampage. The storyline is pretty linear, it made some sense, and they don’t take themselves too seriously. That balance is hard to get right, but in this case, they have. This movie has a lot of special effects ,and they don’t overwhelm you.

This is a fun movie, and I recommend it, if you go to it with no expectations.

Note that it’s PG-13, and there’s a lot of human-monster violence, and vice versa, as well as some animal-animal violence. Some is graphic and over the top, so if that makes you uncomfortable, you should skip this film.

Main Review:

Someone is doing experiments up on the International Space Station. The movie starts after things have gone wrong, and the astronauts are trying to escape. Naturally, it gets worse before it gets better, and of course, the cause gets loose, because otherwise, you wouldn’t have a movie, would you?

There’s a chemical agent that makes its way back to Earth. It falls to different locations, including a zoo in San Diego, into the gorilla section. A rare albino gorilla named George is exposed, and starts to experience unusual growth. His main caretaker, Davis Okoye (Dwayne Johnson) is alarmed, but very concerned for George’s welfare. In fact, they communicate with sign language, but George is losing control of his behavior. He busts out of the zoo, and that’s when the fun begins.

In typical fashion, the government gets involved, in the form of an unnamed agency, led by agent Russell (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). He and his people ignore Davis and Dr Kate Caldwell (Naomie Harris), an employee of Energyne, a company who does genetic research. Fortunately, this doesn’t turn into a totally ham-fisted portrayal of an ignorant government agency, so that was a bit refreshing.

The main villain in the film is Energyne.  It’s run by siblings Clear and Brett Wyden (Malin Akerman and Jake Lacey), who are definitely in it for the Potential profit, no matter how they get there. Roger Ebert used to say how a movie like this is only as good as the villain is bad, but fortunately, the spectacle of this situation is enough to counter the weaknesses of them. Malin Akerman does a passable job here.

Overall, the CGI does not overwhelm the movie. It fits and enhances the experience. George is rendered reasonably well, and his “realistic” movement was accomplished by motion capture. The destruction caused by the monsters is not as frenetic as the Transformers movies, where the camera’s always in motion and disorienting. They’ve found a good balance in this movie.

This film would’ve been a reasonable summer blockbuster, if it had been released then. It’s one where you can turn your brain off, and forget your troubles for an hour and 47 minutes. I didn’t see it in 3D, and I could see where the 3D moments were interjected, but you can safely see this in 2D and still have fun.