Cindy Prascik's Review of Rampage

Dearest Blog: Yesterday it was off to Marquee Cinemas for Dwayne Johnson's latest adventure, Rampage.

 

Spoiler level here will be mild, nothing you wouldn't know from the trailers.

 

When mutant creatures attack Chicago, it's up to Primatologist!Rock and Geneticist!Moneypenny to save the city.

 

Rampage is one of those movies that is exactly as advertised. It's as dumb as a box of rocks, but if you didn't get that before you shelled out for a ticket, you couldn't have been paying attention. 

 

Dwayne Johnson is his usual charming self in the lead. Carrying action flicks is old hat for him by now, and he does it capably. Naomie Harris is a delight, though she's fighting well below her weight class here. The supporting cast boasts a plethora of familiar faces, including effrey Dean Morgan (playing a yet another character you wish would just shut up already), Joe Manganiello, and Will Yun Lee. All have limited screen time and, in particular, I wished Lee had had more to do. The beasts would have been plenty dangerous sans mutation: a gorilla, a wolf, and an alligator. Amplify their size and add a few scary perks (quills, anyone?), and, well, you couldn't blame Chicago for being terrified. The creature effects look pretty decent most of the time, though there's some wonky CGI scattered throughout the movie. Rampage features plenty of well-paced action to offset clunky dialogue and ham-handed delivery, but, sadly, the movie's humor uniformly aims at the lowest common denominator. (It's so bad I was saying the "funny" bits in my head before they happened.)

 

Rampage clocks in at 107 minutes and is rated PG13 for "sequences of violence, action, and destruction, brief language, and crude gestures."

 

Despite holding few surprises, Rampage is a fun way to kill a couple hours indoors until spring finally arrives...assuming it ever does. 

 

Of a possible nine Weasleys, Rampage gets five.

 

Until next time...

MOVIE REVIEW: THE WOLVERINE

Hugh Jackman returns as Wolverine in this sequel to the member of the X-Men's first solo outing. Mark Bomback and The Usual Suspects' Christopher McQuarrie penned the script, which takes its inspiration from the Chris Claremont/Frank Miller Marvel miniseries from the 1980s dealing with the character's adventures in Japan as he fights ninjas in the ceremonial garb of the samurai. Knight and Day's James Mangold directs. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi

Director: James Mangold

Cast: Hugh Jackman, Will Yun Lee, Hiroyuki Sanada, Brian Tee, Famke Janssen

Release Date: Jul 26, 2013 RealD 3D

Rated PG-13 For language, Intense Sci-Fi Action, Some Sexuality and Violence

Runtime: 2 hr. 6 min.

Genres: Action/Adventure

Review:

X-Men Origins: Wolverine was such a massive misfire that I excised the majority of the film from my memory as soon as the film ended. Needless to the say, I wasn’t terribly excited about The Wolverine especially after Darren Aronofsky dropped out. James Mangold is a solid if unimpressive director so I was still fairly leery of another solo entry for Wolverine. Thankfully The Wolverine is a solid piece of comic book filmmaking with a focused storyline with a pensive seriousness that pervades the better part of the film. Mangold delivers a well balanced film that provides enough action to keep your blood pumping, an impressive bullet train sequence stands out, and heart to keep it interesting. By this point in time the audience should be well versed in the general particulars of Logan’s story so the film doesn’t waste much time explaining rudimentary facts, instead it focuses on Logan after the envents of X-Men: The Last Stand. As a result Hugh Jackman is allowed to flesh out some of the turmoil at play in Logan’s mind. The result is a mixed bag with some of the attempts hitting home while most of the Jean Grey hallucinations come off a tad too heavy handed. Even with its flaws, its effect character building. It helps that the cast of supporting characters and villains has been trimmed to an economically small group. Rila Fukushima leaves a solid impression as Logan’s de facto sidekick. Tao Okamoto, the love interest, feels like she should leave a bigger impression but she’s decidedly bland. Fairing worse is Svetlana Khodchenkova’s vamping villainess, Viper, who is a ham fisted misfire especially in the final act. The final act itself forgoes all the seriousness for a goofy and ultimately anticlimactic end to the film. The Wolverine would have fared better if it’d had some tighter editing, especially in the flabby midsection, and delivered a thrilling finale but it still delivers a solid entry into the X-men cannon. An excellent post credit sequence will leave you waiting patiently or impatiently for the upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past.

B-

[Trailer] The Wolverine

It won’t take much to wash off the horrible taste from X-men Origins: Wolverine. It was probably one of the worse comic movies I’ve sat through. So while another go around with this character seems unnecessary at the very least they can’t do any worse than before, this trailer gives a glimmer of hope especially with quick shots of Silver Samurai among others. Still, after the last debacle I’m still very wary…



International Trailer




US Trailer