Movie Review – Rampage

If you enjoyed Kong: king of Apes of 2016 and Skull Island 0f 2017 then you would most likely enjoy this new movie called Rampage. The movie which featured Dwayne Johnson as the lead actor had a funny yet interesting storyline of how he found “George” as he was called who was an ape, while he was on one of his missions. Davis Okoye as he was called in the movie was a man who was more affiliated to animals than he was to man, although women found him so attractive, he was in no way interested as he spent more time with animals, than men. It looks like we would be having varying ape movies yearly as they has been one every year for the past three years, although I did kind of enjoy the movie, I seemed to get lost at some point towards the end, as the fighting scenes dragged on for way too long. I was also so surprised that despite all “George” the ape went through, he still didn’t die, really! Was that to just give the movie a happy ending and bring out a part 2, I really didn’t feel that was necessary at all.

The movie was directed by Brad Peyton, it was a very good movie, the movie was written by Ryan Engle and three others, and they proved to have an imaginative mind to come up with this concept. It was obvious that the movie was staged, but they made it look so real, it looked as if everything was real, the highlights of this movie was towards the end, when the controlled gigantic animals all had to make their way to the city and in the process destroyed everything they came across, it was so scary and real. The movement from the smaller cities, forest, deserts and water to the city was kind of intriguing. I would say that the production and scripting was quiet impressive.

The first scene in the movie was quite funny as they displayed the Davis skills of speaking and controlling the apes in the home, they have created for them. It functioned like a mini zoo, where people could come watch the animals live like they were in the real jungle. Davis knew everyone of their names and communicated with them so easily. Most humans couldn’t really understand how he did and why they listened to him, but the truth was that he spent more time with the animals than he did with any other humans, making it so easy for them to understand and communicate with him, the ape “George” also had a great sense of humour and he communicated so well, you would almost forget he was an animal. The main movie started when the scientific experiment of an evil company went bad, some of the samples from out of space fell on earth and corrupted the land.

As it were, the virus went into some animals  and they all grew at a very sporadic speed, one that no one could control or contend with. Their growth was fast and they began to exhibit skills, strength and behaviours they never had before, unfortunately our beloved “George” was one of the unfortunate animals who got contaminated. Davis didn’t know what to do to stop his growth, until one day he grew bigger than the gate and got lost, destroying the zoo and almost hurting humans, he had to be brought down and taken to another space. In this process Davis met Dr. Kate Kaldwell, who was the lead doctor on the experiment, before the experiment got bad and she got sacked. She explained to him all she knew, and what they could do and where to get the cure from, that the antidote could bring the animals back to tameable sizes. Well you would need to watch to see how they destroyed Chicago city all because of the evil intention of one woman.

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Marley Shelton, Jack Quaid, Will Yun Lee, Naomie Harris, Jake Lacy, P.J. Byrne, Breanne Hill and Urijah Faber

Genre: Actio, Adventure, Drama, Science-Fiction & Fantasy

Director: Brad Peyton

Ratings: PG 13 (for sequences of violence, action and destruction, brief language and crude gestures)

Written by: Ryan Engle, Carlton Cuse, Ryan Condal, Adam Sztykiel

Runtime: 107 mins

Studio: Warner Bros Pictures

To my verdict, I would score this movie 7/10, I did enjoy the movie a bit, but kind of felt that some scenes were unnecessarily prolonged, I was also shocked with the twist at the end, didn’t see that coming and felt it couldn’t have ended in another way. I still take my stands that the most important thing in a movie is a strong compelling story; the storyline wasn’t as compelling as I would have thought. For the adventure and drama movie lovers, then this is the movie for you this weekend.

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