Rampage (2018) felt too self aware that it was a big animal fight club movie

in

Look, I'm gonna say it so nobody else has to: people like to watch animals fight. Man vs Man is the most common of our movie going experiences, but the wide world out there in real life pits man against beast, chicken versus chicken, dog versus dog, and tortoise versus hare. With Rampage, we see a full acknowledgement of this with The Rock versus Flying Porcupine Wolf, Warthog Alligator, and Big Ape.

    Let's summarize for the sake of posterity: there's some evil rich people who made a thing that makes normal animals into violent hybrid creatures. We open in space with a crazy big rat tearing apart a space station. Three canisters that totally can survive reentry crash to earth and somehow miss all the water and snow and open against orders to infect some creatures. One of these creatures is George, friend of outcast human The Rock, an albino gorilla. When George starts to grow super big and mean, killing a grizzly, The Rock wants to know what's wrong with his friend. Enter Jeffrey Dean Morgan playing my favorite cowboy government special operations person of all time, swaggering around with a big belt buckle and side arm wondering what is going on with the big monkey. Then all the animals fight, the humans wink at the screen, and we all go home knowing that the more human something is the more it can totally kill nature. And who was the real villain after all?

    I have so much to say about this weird ass movie. So much that it's crowding my brain and coming out white noise.

    First off, I want Kurt Russell from Fast and the Furious and Jeffrey Dean Morgan from Rampage to get together to run some kind of Big Monkey Super Car Heist Film.

    Second, I kinda love how cartoonish the villains are. They are straight up for the evil, actively luring giant dangerous creatures into a city. They get eaten and squashed and it's very effective. That the "hero" creature of the movie eats the bad guy is problematic and yet satisfying. I want to buy that playset of George and Evil Lady Poo Pile because he's gonna have to crap her out.

    Third, fuck science. Your place is in the real world, not in my big monster movie, so next time let's just get wizards.

    Finally, was I the only one disappointed The Rock didn't take the secret formula whatever and grow giant and wreck shit? Sequel, baby.