Rampage (Film)

Film
Rampage
Directed by	Brad Peyton
Produced by	Beau Flynn John Rickard Brad Peyton Hiram Garcia
Screenplay by	Ryan Engle Carlton Cuse Ryan J. Condal Adam Sztykiel
Story by	Ryan Engle
Music by	Andrew Lockington
Cinematography	Jaron Presant
Edited by	Jim May
Production company	New Line Cinema Flynn Picture Company Rickard Pictures Seven Bucks Productions
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date	: April 20, 2018
Country	United States
Language	English

Rampage is an American action adventure monster film directed by Brad Peyton. It is loosely based on the video game series of the same name by Midway Games. The film stars Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris, Malin Åkerman, Joe Manganiello, Jake Lacy, Marley Shelton, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

New Line Cinema released the film on April 12 2018 in 3D and IMAX. On November 14 2016, two petitions were made to allow the bands Amon Amarth and Judas Priest to guest star in the film.

Plot

Athena-1, a research space station owned by gene manipulation company Energyne, is destroyed after a laboratory rat mutates and wreaks havoc. A crew member, Dr. Kerry Atkins, is ordered to retrieve research canisters containing a pathogen by CEO Claire Wyden. Atkins is able to flee in the escape pod, but it disintegrates upon reentry, killing her and leaving a trail of debris across the United States, including the Everglades, where a canister is consumed by an American crocodile, and a forest in Wyoming, where a gray wolf is exposed to the pathogen.

Primatologist Davis Okoye, a former US Army Special Forces soldier and member of an anti-poaching unit, is a primatologist in a San Diego wildlife preserve. He befriends a rare albino gorilla named George, whom he saved from poachers. One night, as Davis drives home from work, one of the canisters crash lands in George's habitat. George is exposed to the pathogen when he checks it out.

George grows considerably larger and aggressive overnight. Davis is contacted by Dr. Kate Caldwell, a genetic engineer who explains that the pathogen was developed by Energyne to rewrite genes on a massive scale. She had hoped to advance CRISPR research as a potential cure for disease but discovered that Energyne planned to use it as a biological weapon. The company fired her and sent her to prison for attempting to expose them. George escapes from captivity and goes on a rampage at the preserve. Davis calms him down, but George is captured by a government team led by Agent Harvey Russell and is put on a plane. Meanwhile, Claire and her brother Brett send a squad of mercenaries led by Burke to capture the mutated wolf, Ralph, but they are all killed.

Claire, hoping to capture Ralph and use George to kill Kate so they can cover up their plans, uses a massive transmitter to lure the animals, who have been engineered to respond aggressively to a certain sound frequency, to Chicago. George reacts violently to the sound and crashes the plane. Davis, Kate and Agent Russell manage to parachute from the plane before it crashes. George, who survived the crash, joins Ralph as they make their way to Chicago. Davis and Kate convince Russell to help them steal a helicopter so they can get ahead of George.

By the time they arrive, George and Ralph are attacking the city. The military are overwhelmed when a mutated crocodile, Lizzie, arrives and causes more casualties. Davis and Kate attempt to steal a serum with the hope they can turn the mutated animals back to normal. They are able to reach Energyne headquarters at Willis Tower and steal a handful of serums, but they are caught by Claire and Brett. Claire reveals that the serum only eliminates the animals' aggressiveness rather than revert them to their normal sizes, and she shoots Davis, though he survives. When George climbs up to the top of the building and causes chaos, Claire orders Davis to distract him while she attempts to escape with Kate held at gunpoint. During the escape, Kate slips the serum in Claire's handbag and punches her towards George, who eats her, and thus the serum. George and the other animals destroy the transmitter, and consequently, the entire building topples to the ground.

With George returned to his normal personality, Davis stays to help him defeat the other two animals while Kate flees to prevent the military from dropping a MOAB bomb on the city. Russell is able to take a laptop of incriminating evidence from Brett before the latter is crushed by falling rubble. George and Davis are able to kill Ralph by tricking him into flying between Lizzie's jaws and ripping his head off, while George kills Lizzie by impaling her eye and into her brain with a metal bar. With the threat neutralized, the airstrike is called off, and George helps in clearing the city of debris.

Cast

• Dwayne Johnson as Davis Okoye, a primatologist and head of an anti-poaching unit.
• Naomie Harris as Dr. Kate Caldwell, a genetic engineer who teams up with Okoye.
• Malin Åkerman as Claire Wyden, the woman responsible for the infection and mutation of George, Ralph, and Lizzie with the mutagenic serum for Project: Rampage.
• Joe Manganiello as Burke, the leader of a private military group
• Jake Lacy as Brett Wyden, Claire’s dimwit brother
• Marley Shelton as Dr. Kerry Atkins, a scientist and astronaut.
• Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Agent Russell, a government agent who works for an agency called OGA.
• Jason Liles as the motion-capture of George, an albino gorilla and one of the animals affected by a strange chemical that mutates him.
• P. J. Byrne as Nelson, a scientist and friend of Okoye.
• Demetrius Grosse as Colonel Blake
• Jack Quaid as Conner
• Breanne Hill as Amy
• Matt Gerald as Zammit
• Will Yun Lee as Agent Park
• Urijah Faber as Garrick
• Bruce Blackshear as Taylor
• Jason Liles as the motion-capture of George
• Skye Notary and Willow Notary provide the motion-capture of two female gorillas.

Monsters featured in the Film Adaptation

• George- The main monster in the film, in the film adaption, George is an albino gorilla saved by Davis Okoye and lives his entire life in a sanctuary, a mysterious genetic-altering chemical mutates him, turning him into a giant gorilla with enhanced strength, speed and durability.
• Ralph- The second monster in the film, in the film adaption, Ralph is a Grey Wolf living in the wild, after being mutated, he transforms into a large wolf-like monster that has developed quills over its head and back, having a more grotesque built on its face and mutates skin-flaps over its limbs to glide. His named was given by the people on the internet.
• Lizzie- The last monster to be introduced in the film, in the film adaption, Lizzie is an American Crocodile, unlike the other two, whose origins is not revealed is mutated to be a large crocodilian like monster, being the biggest and bulkiest, as well as the slowest among the three.
• Unnamed Rat Monster- At the beginning it's also briefly shown a large rat monster who may be a reference to Larry. The monster didn't receive an official name.

Reception

The film has received mixed reviews from critics, with Johnson and Morgan's performances and the visual effects being praised, but the writing and faithlessness to the source material was criticized. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 51% based on 171 reviews, and an average rating of 5.3/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Rampage isn't as fun as its source material, but the movie's sheer button-mashing abandon might satisfy audiences in the mood for a brainless blockbuster." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 45 out of 100, based on 43 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported adult and children filmgoers gave it respective overall positive scores of 90% and 86%.

Gallery

Japanese Promotional Poster of the film

Alternative Poster of the film

Fan-art of the "Main Three" causing rampage.

Agent Russell's Rampage Rig, designed by Will Ghormley

Videos

RAMPAGE - OFFICIAL TRAILER 1 HD

Trivia

• Unlike the story within the original games and its sequel, Rampage (2018) focuses on altering the size and behavioral traits animals rather than mutating humans into giant animal-like monsters.
  • This possibly being that if the developers would stick to the original story, it is a less interesting concept of "people turning into giant monsters and wreck the city unexplainably" and even considered it 'cliche'. 
  • Another concept is keeping the whole film interesting but keeping the whole getup of "Rampage" at the same time.
  • The decision to make George an albino ape and Lizzie a crocodile is clearly to avoid similarities between the recent resurgence of Godzilla and King Kong in their shared film series Monsterverse.
• In the story, the main original three are chosen by popularity, as well as being the first introduced in the very first game: (George the Gorilla, Ralph the Wolf, and Lizzie the Lizard).
  • In the film, Lizzie is the only monster whose species is written differently. Rather than being a lizard, she is a crocodile.
    • This is because the developers wanted a more realistic animal for Lizzie to be rather than an iguana or a monitor lizard.
    • Lizzie is officially classified as the biggest monster in the film.
  • Unlike his previous reincarnates, Ralph is written as quadrupled, feral, famined and ragged.
    • This is likely making Ralph more terrifying and realistic in scientific terms.
    • Unlike Lizzie's concept, the developers decided that Ralph is a wolf so he can't climb (even though it is Ralph's signature move), but instead chose to give him those skin-like flaps for gliding in exchange for his climbing abilities.
    • Also it was quite clear that the directors believed mutating Ralph and Lizzie to be bipedal would be seriously pushing it and considered too corny for today's cinema.
  • In the film, George is the only animal among the three whose physical details and features were not altered besides the size. Still looking like a normal Albino Gorilla.
    • In Ralph's case, his genes made him develop quills and skin-like flaps.
    • While Lizzie has sported inhumane numbers of teeth and tusks, as well as short frills and is literally covered in 'impale-a-man' size spikes and sports a club.
    • George is considered dirty-minded, when Okoye even mentioned he has a "twisted sense of humor".
    • Originally, George was supposed to die boldly in Rampage.  But it was The Rock himself, as a producer, who insisted on changing that.
• The italian title of the movie is "Rampage - Furia Animale" (translated in Rampage - Animal Fury).
• Brad Peyton stated that the rat at the beginning wasn't Larry, however if there will be a sequel he will use a rat with that name.

References from the original games

• George arrives to Chicago via a cargo plane, this could be a reference to the bonus stage in Rampage World Tour where the lead characters dodge misses and collect items while riding miniature planes, the end of each bonus stage would take them to a new location.
• Lizzie and Ralph are shown to eat several people during the destruction of Chicago sequence, referencing the ability to do so in the games.
• Both Rampage and Rampage World Tour arcade cabinets appear in Claire's office.

Changes from the final film

• Davis' "The only thing that is missing right now is a giant crocodile." line is removed in the final cut.
  • Likewise, Caldwell's "There is something in the river" line is changed.
• A scene of George rampaging in the first two Official trailers has Ralph and a sign of Dave & Busters on one of the building pieces added and the sparks on the crashed debris is omitted in the final film.
• A scene of Lizzie resurfacing has the smoke omitted in the final cut. 

External Links

• Rampage on Rotten Tomatoes
• Rampage on IMDb