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MOVIE: Rampage STARRING: Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Malin Akerman, Jason Liles. RATING: M SHOWING AT: Grand Central REVIEWER: Leigh Paatsch 2.5/5

DWAYNE ‘The Rock’ Johnson has just stepped off the biggest box-office hit of his career as a leading man ($1.25bn for Jumanji: Welcome to the

Jungle), so the big fella could be excused for coasting through his next few movies.

However, as we all should know by now, The Rock doesn’t have an ‘autopilot’ setting. Which is just as well for

Rampage, a formulaic action-adventure affair loosely inspired by an ‘80s video game.

The mega-popular man-mountain stars as Davis Okoye, the world’s finest ape-whisperer tasked with saving Chicago from a certain trashing by a giant albino gorilla named George.

Davis and the monster primate used to be best buds at the local zoo. That was until George huffed a top-secret hormone that turned him into King Kong’s taller, wider and angrier cousin.

George now runs with a gnarly gang that includes a flying wolf, and an alligator the size of a nuclear sub.

Need I go on? For a screenplay with four writers credited, Rampage sure is skimpy with the kind of stuff that gets you scratching your head and thinking “yeah, that could happen”.

Villains and love interests (heck, let’s just say it – anyone who isn’t The Rock) are also a let-down here.

If any member of the bland support cast registers here at all, it is only Jeffrey Dean Morgan as a grumpy government spook who secretly digs the I-can-talk-to-the-animals heroics of Davis.

The whole movie is as dumb as a brick, sillier than words can say, and a smidge more fun that it really should be due to the irrepressible enthusiasm of Johnson.