Why Rampage Was A Missed Opportunity

An unfortunate turn of events leading up to me not getting to see Deadpool 2 because it booked out completely had me turning to what my friends and I thought would be a passable feature film to hold us over. I mean we came all this way to the cinema might as well see something right?

• It can't be that bad, its got monsters, a big budget and the Rock in it right?
• We won't take it too seriously its a move based on an arcade game right?

On both accounts, I would have to say yes. Rampage is not a bad movie, the big budget was well spent on some amazing CGI and the rock had a solid performance in what seems to be a comfort zone for him a buddy, action movie. Do I really need to count the ways? Central intelligence, Jumanji, Baywatch, the list goes on.

You simply cannot take this movie seriously and the premise is as paper thin as the game the movie is based on. Monsters get big, they smash things and the executives and writers agreed that deciding to add some gene therapy and mutation and a plot twist one of the animals cares so much for humans they help the rock kick monster butt. Yes, that's basically the entire movie, you could fit the plot into a tweet and still have enough space for your hashtags and @ all the actors in the film.

*Trailer for Rampage*

Plot of Rampage

For those of you who haven't seen the film or don't plan on seeing it. It's your basic CGI induced action film that stars global icon Dwayne Johnson as primatologist Davis Okoye, a man who keeps people at a distance but shares an unshakable bond with George, the extraordinarily intelligent, incredibly rare albino silverback gorilla who has been in his care since he rescued the young orphan from poachers.

Meanwhile, a sinister conglomerate is hatching a plan to use genetic manipulation for profit by creating super animals that they can then sell to governments as WMD's and make huge sums of money off government contracts. Like we haven't heard this one before.

Guess what happens next, you'll never guess. The rogue genetic experiment gone awry mutates this gentle ape into a raging creature of enormous size. To make matters worse, it’s soon discovered there are other similarly altered animals. As these newly created alpha predators tear across North America, destroying everything in their path, Okoye teams with discredited geneticist Kate Caldwell (Naomie Harris) to secure an antidote, fighting his way through an ever-changing battlefield, not only to halt a global catastrophe but to save the fearsome creature that was once his friend.

Topics rampage tackles

In its paper-thin predictable script, it tackles four main elements

• Corporate Greed
• Government intervention
• Man Made Mass destruction
• Save the planet

Things rampage gets right

• The humour
• The Rocks acting
• Jeffrey Dean Morgan's acting
• The CGI
• Malin Åkerman - As much as I'm not a fan of hers she really brought it in this role and I feel one of her best performances as the badass corporate executive Claire Wyden. Malin dominated every scene she was in and it was enjoyable having her push you away with every line and learn to hate her character to the bone.

Why Rampage is a missed opportunity

You have 2 solid acting performances from Jeffery, Malin and Dwayne, you had some great CGI and half-decent dialogue but as I said the plot was paper thin and the motivations weren't fleshed out well enough. Everyone's just kinda there like oh well let's try and stop these things and go back to our boring meaningless lives.

Having the rights to a product like Rampage which has zero backstory the writers had creative freedom and licence to paint a world the way they wanted to but instead gave us a generic plot we've seen all too often.

I'm no scriptwriter but let's give it a go and see if my idea would have any merit against Warner Brothers & New Line Cinema.

My plot for Rampage

It dates back to 65 million years ago when the meteors hit the earth, part of that meteor exposed certain primitive animals to a genetic mutation that lied dormant for centuries. Through selective breeding, the gene remained dormant waiting for a missing piece to react to.

We then move into 2018 and we see how human cruelty and greed begins to destroy our precious world and its resources. As we keep pushing these boundaries and upsetting the natural order the gene slowly begins to react to the distress and aggression these animals feel.

We focus on 3 elements the forest, the rivers and the African jungle.

We look at how humans poison and dump into lakes, abuse it for our own purposes destroying natural habitats in favour of lakeside property and how we push these water-dwelling creatures to the brink. This distress reacts in 1 alpha in a crocodile who begins to grow into larger and larger in order to take back what humans have stolen from the natural order.

We are then shown the forest where trees are cut down for corporate greed, hunters kill buck and deer for sport and slowly encroach on their natural habitat. One alpha in a wolf decides to fight back as hunters kill off his pack, his or her anger and distresses pushes it over the edge the gene reacts and the hunters are killed. But with the wolfs pack slain vengeance is all that matters.

We then see the African jungle poaches are killing animals to sell on the black market as one of the last remaining albino gorillas George is a prized asset. His cornered as his family has been slain and just before a killer blow is struck a Solider In Davis (Played by the rock) saves our young gorilla. Seeing the worst of humans Davis becomes a primatologist in order to remain close to George and also feed his love for animals and his detest for humans.

Davis and Geroge form a strong interspecies bond that cannot be broken.

As George grows up attempts to have him mate to ensure the survival of his strain of Gorillas seems like it's not going to work out and the Albino Gorilla will become extinct. Thinking this was going to be a cash cow the company funding the project cuts their funds. Desperate not to lose George Davis escapes with his primate pal and hides out with him in the wilderness.

A bounty is put on Davis and George and ex-military come after Davis. They finally track him down and beat him senseless, as well as George. They know George is needed alive so his spared but Davis will not be so lucky as they're about to put a bullet in Davis head, George snaps the gene activates and the entire miltary operation is killed.

We see George care for Davis and nurse him back to health, the two of them both have no desire to ever help a human again. As the crocodile and wolf continue to grow and become more powerful military efforts fail to stop them and cities are overrun.

This news reaches Davis as a heartfelt plea goes out to anyeone who can help save a few stranded civilians s in the now desolate city. Davis now sees that if the crocodile and wolf are not stopped there will be nothing left. His now torn between both humans and well destruction of the world.

He decides he will help save these innocents with the help of George. The two travel to the city in search of the party needing rescuing and naturally things go side ways as Big George alerts the military and later the wolf and crocodile of his presence.

George is attacked by the army but is later defended by Davis and the remaining civilians. The military then turn their attention to buying some time to evac the civilians and attack the crocodile and wolf. Their efforts prove futile and half of them are wiped out. Davis is at a cross roads he did what he was set out to do but he and George see the slain soldiers think of their familes and it's the same scene that played out in the beginning when Davis saved George as a baby.

The two band together with the help of the army to take down the two creatures. The city celebrates the news travels the globe and we see the error of our ways. That humans and animals need to co-exist or we will only end up destorying each other. George and Davis become ambassodrs for cohabitation and George slowly begins to shrink back to normal size in the process!

Have your say

What did you think of the movie Rampage? Was it worth your time? Do senseless action movies still have a place in modern cinema? Is it all about what can commercially get the most bums in seats without reinventing the wheel?

Drop me a comment like its hot!

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