Rampage (Dir Brad Peyton, 1h 47m)

 
“So”, the spectre of video games movies says, rising from its arcade unit-esque tomb, “You have broken the curse, it would seem! But how?”
“Rampage” I answer
The spectre scratches its head, looking, so much that a spectre with no eyes, or discernible face muscle structure can do, perplexed.
“Really? The 1986 Midway arcade game where you control humans that are transformed into monsters, who destroy cities to score points? The Rampage that got a couple of so-so sequels, and has no real plot other than mindless destruction?”
I nod. The shade looks confused
“But out of all of the videogame movies, how the hell is this the best one? Out of all the great narratives of videogame history, all the complex characters, how the hell is this the best”
I shrug
“Probably because it’s the one that captures what the game did best?”
The spectre draws a chair up, and sits down
“Explain.”

In short, Rampage is, much like the arcade game that birthed it, an enjoyably stupid, cheap, and yet enjoyable experience. It may take liberties with the original story in some places, most notably in the change of George, Lizzie and Ralph (the giant gorilla, Godzilla expy, changed to crocodile/dinosaur in the film and giant wolf) from humans transformed by miscellaneous B-Movie plots to monsters transformed by militarised science, but elsewhere it’s more than happy to revel in the destruction of the games.

Yet, this reverence isn’t the “everything and the kitchen sink” approach that has plagued videogame adaptions for years, where the film degenerates into a referential box-ticking exercise, but more a cliff notes edition; George, Lizzie and Ralph are here, (heck, even additional character Larry, from the ill-fated Atari Lynx edition, makes a brief and surprisingly frightening appearance at the beginning of the film aboard a top secret space station), things get destroyed, and everyone has a good time.

With three canisters of experimental pathogen surviving the destruction of a research space station owned by shadowy company Energyne, and crashlanding to earth, three different creatures, a wolf, a crocodile and a gorilla are affected by their contents, and begin to grow both larger, and more dangerous. Onto this familiar narrative, director Brad Peyton has bolted a surprisingly good action flick; Dwayne Johnson once again plays a likable everyman swept up in a conspiracy surrounding top-secret research, giant monsters, and a hell of a lot of destruction.

The gorilla, George, has been raised by Johnson’s character, Davis, a primatologist, since his time working for the UN against poachers; it is this bond between man and gorilla that, surprisingly enough, lends the film an affecting quality-we are no longer merely watching the plot of a mere monster going about its King Kong-esque rampage, but a race against time to save our hero’s friend; we see Davis’s concern about the transformation of his friend and his fear that he may be destroyed as he becomes more and more of a threat. His personal bond with the gorilla, including the fact that they can sign to each other, and Davis’s training as a primatologist, certainly makes George a better rounded and more interesting character as well.

Along for the ride is Kate Caldwell, played by Naomi Harris-previously employed by Energyne, who used her research, which she intended to help aid her ailing brother, to develop the pathogen, and then had her arrested for trying to sabotage the data once she realised what they were doing with it, with her brother dying whilst she was imprisoned, she now seeks to undermine and complete her revenge against the company. Like Davis, she is given a surprising complexity as a character, and like Davis, there is a deeply personal element to her trying to save the gorilla, and undo the damage of Energyne.

Yet, to be entirely frank, what we’ve really come for is George, Lizzie (strangely never named on screen), and Ralph, causing utter chaos and widespread destruction en-route to, and indeed in, Chicago. This, Rampage delivers in spadeloads, from a team sent by the villains, brother and sister Claire and Brett, to hunt down Ralph leading to a suspenseful sequence where an entire team of mercenaries are summarily dispatched, to the military slowly realising they cannot contain either George or Ralph, as they and Lizzie are drawn into Chicago by a signal atop Energyne’s building, to the jawdroppingly visceral destruction of said building, as all three colossal monsters attempt to climb it, to its collapse.

And then comes the film’s true ace in the hole; with the signal now destroyed, George takes on both monsters in a tokusatsu-esque battle worthy of any Godzilla movie, a titanic duel that sees building destroyed, an enjoyably bruising battle between ape, crocodile and wolf, and a suitably satisfying ending that takes an unexpected left turn from the original game. Moreover, Rampage,  like many of Johnson’s recent ouvre, is a film that has a surprisingly comedic streak-both of the human villains are dispatched in brutally funny ways, whilst even between George and Davis, there are scenes that mix humour and a warm-hearted streak in a surprisingly effective and affecting way.

In short, Rampage has everything the original game had; destruction, monsters, and a wicked sense of humour. Yet, each of these have been expanded, fleshed out, given care and a surprisingly amount of love. It may sound odd, but Rampage deserves to be the greatest video-game movie so far for one simple reason. It knows exactly what Rampage is, what to include, what to leave out and how to tell its story best, in all its boneheaded, destructive, monstrous glory.

“Hmm”, the shade mutters,
“That does sound pretty good, honestly. Maybe more videogame movies should do that.”
“Well, yeah. Honestly, that’s what most adaptions do. You know, books, comics”
“Well, that’s obvious, but why haven’t people done that before? It seems so obvious…why is this the film that does it?”. The spectre stratches his skull.
“Because Rampage never had much of a plot before, honestly, and what it added was an improvement.”
The shade nods sagely.
“That it seems to be.”

I get up to leave, and then remember something.
“Say, shade”
“Hmm?”
“It’s not that good.”
“It’s better than anything else, for sure.”
He starts to vanish into pixels.
“Well, actually, the Phoenix Wright Film…”
“Shut up and give it a rating”
“Uh…I guess I recommend it.”
“Good.”
“Right.”
And he’s gone, with a ringing noise that calls to mind the coins from Mario.

Rating: Recommended.