Rampage is the type of movie I hate doing reviews for. With a movie like Rampage, anyone who was thinking about seeing this film is going to and anyone who thought the trailer looked stupid, will stay home. And that basically sums up the film. As a technical film, outside of the creature designs, it’s an incredibly stupid movie. The acting is all over the place. Jeffrey Dean Morgan thought this was a prequel to The Walking Dead and that he was playing Negan before the zombie apocalypse. Dwayne Johnson has more chemistry with the CG over-sized gorilla than he does with Naomie Harris. The two human villains are almost cartoonish. Director Brad Peyton CLEARLY reused set pieces from the last big budget clusterfuck of a film starring Dwayne Johnson (San Andreas) cause there are helicopters everywhere. Literally the only redeeming quality of this film is that the creatures look amazing and do in fact fuck up a lot of things.

And that’s why this review doesn’t matter. For most, that last line is all that will matter. They will go into this film, see the creatures make a mess of Chicago and leave the theater with a temporary high and enjoyment that will fade quickly after a week. Infinity War will come out and people will literally forget that this movie ever came out. For some that will still make it worth the overpriced theater tickets they paid for it (Please don’t pay IMAX money for this). In the end, while this is not even close to a good movie, it knows it’s audience and delivers what they will want. I can’t see anyone who was already interested in seeing this film, going into the theater and leaving upset. If what you saw in the trailer interested you, then by all means, ignore the reviews and go see the film because you will probably enjoy it.

This isn’t another Jumanji Welcome to the Jungle. That film understood what it was, leaned into it and in the process turned into a pretty good film. It also had great chemistry among the cast who were the real selling point. While many say that Dwayne Johnson is the draw for Rampage, the truth is, it’s the CG creatures that are the real selling point. The human characters (all of them) are just a distraction and in the way. Again, there’s enough here for those that were already in for this movie to be satisfied but I can’t help but wonder why the film couldn’t have put just a little bit more effort into trying to make a coherent story and interesting characters.

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