RAMPAGE

Cert Running time

There’s super-sized monkey business in this all-action video game adaptation. Powered by Dwayne Johnson’s goofy charm and astonishing ability to keep a straight face amid preposterous carnage, Rampage combines live action with giant CGI creatures and a knowing sense of the ridiculous which it takes to mammoth levels of excess.

An evil corporation has developed a pathogen which mutates animals into huge versions of themselves, with equally massive anger management issues. So it’s up to Johnson’s special forces gamekeeper-turned ape expert to stop the infected monsters and save the life of a rare albino gorilla.

In an interesting inversion of longstanding Hollywood convention, he teams up with Naomie Harris’s geneticist, which means we have two non-white actors saving a white ‘guy’ who is a noble savage. Harris offers droll commentary on the alpha-male posturing between Johnson and Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s government agent.

There’s a cheery disregard of physics, biology and science in general, in favour of giant lab rats in outer space, huge wolves attacking military helicopters and massive crocodiles crushing downtown Chicago.

Functional dialogue exists only to link one scene of CGI mayhem to the next. Director Brad Peyton was also responsible for Johnson’s previous adventure films, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island and San Andreas. And this reinforces the Fast & Furious actor’s brand as the go-to-guy for outlandish blockbuster adventures.

Based on the 1986 arcade game, this follows hot on the heels of Johnson’s megasmash Jumanji sequel (see below).

But where that film cleverly generated gags using the language of video games, Rampage ignores the gaming aspect. This enjoyable numbskull nonsense has the tone and tempo of a Saturday morning cartoon, but it’s a bit too gory for the under-10s.