Review of Rampage (2018) by Sean L — 23 Jul 2018

News flash: shallow, one-dimensional video games make for shallow, one-dimensional movies. Between the dull, overplayed storytelling devices, awful script, budget special effects and barren acting performances, I'm not even sure if an honest effort was made to fight that tide. The Rock is energetic and charismatic in the lead role, but the Rock basically excretes refined energy and charisma, so we can't count that in Rampage's favor. It's fair to say the second most-memorable performance is delivered by an unconvincing computer-generated albino gorilla with a complete mastery of nuanced human communication (he and Dwayne supposedly correspond via sign language, but half the time they don't even bother pointing those gestures at each other) so one can safely assume that the phone will remain silent on the eve of this year's Academy Award nominations.

If the filmmakers had spent half as much time on the plot as they did in force-feeding the original 1986 arcade cabinet into various backgrounds... well, it still probably wouldn't have made a whole lot of sense. My kids seemed to have a good time, and they're big fans of the game, so I guess it deserves partial credit for that.