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...
