Action-filled third act helps save summer popcorn flick ‘Rampage’

Posted on May 11, 2018

By MARK VIOLA

I’m going to date myself a bit, but I remember times during my childhood when I would spend hours at an arcade playing video games. Although I didn’t play it much, one game did stick out to me a bit: “Rampage.” The premise was the opposite of what most other games featured. Instead of trying to save the city, you were trying to destroy it, using giant animal monsters.

I hadn’t thought about the game for years until I first saw the trailer for the new movie “Rampage,” starring Dwayne Johnson (“Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle”), surrounded by giant animal monsters bent on destroying a city. I don’t remember much about the original game — which has apparently spawned numerous sequels since my arcade days — but it didn’t seem to have much of a plot other than mayhem and destruction. But then, Michael Bay made billions doing the same thing when adapting the “Transformers” franchise, so why can’t others get in on the action, right?

“Rampage” is a pretty dumb action movie, with a threadbare script and barely two-dimensional characters, but it somehow manages to avoid being truly bad by providing plenty of fun action sequences and always remembering that it is a big-budget action movie starring Dwayne Johnson surrounded by giant animal monsters.

Subscribe to our e-Edition and read the rest of the story. Already a subscriber? Click here to sign in.