Rampage Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Rampage Blu-ray Movie Review

Windy City Wreckage.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman July 18, 2018

Rampage is based on an arcade and later home console video game of the same name that hasn't seen any new variants in quite some time but that apparently remains popular enough to make the jump to the big screen. The film, starring Dwayne Johnson and Directed by Brad Peyton (who have previously collaborated on Journey 2 and San Andreas), tells the story of a few genetically modified animals running amok and wreaking havoc through Chicago. It's becoming like a broken record to say, but there's absolutely nothing here of novel interest. It's big, yes, it's intensive, sure, but it's also very basic beyond the digital smoke and mirrors, the seamless special effects and grand scale action pieces that attempt to divert attention away from the absence of substance. But to the film's credit it largely plays to type, makes no pretenses about aspiring to anything more than modern entertainment, so it's at least unpretentious as it goes about its business of loud and destructive creatures toppling buildings and swatting aircraft from the sky in what is essentially a 21st century take on classic 50s mutated monster movies.

In space, a science experiment goes horribly wrong. A small crew is killed and the station hurtles back to Earth after it was destroyed by a mutated rat, the byproduct of a risky genetic engineering process known as CRISPR, which, when misused, has been deemed a weapon of mass destruction. Davis Okoye (Dwayne Johnson), once an elite military fighter, has since devoted his life to the science of primatology. He has befriended an albino ape named George who accidentally comes into contact with a mutating pathogen that has fallen to Earth from the doomed space station. The ape, and a pair of other creatures -- a wolf and an crocodile -- are exposed. They quickly grow in size and become all but indestructible. Davis, alongside a genetic engineer named Kate Caldwell (Naomie Harris), finds himself in the middle of a nightmare scenario as the mutated creatures rampage through Chicago. Meanwhile, Claire Wyden (Malin Åkerman), CEO of the company behind the pathogen's development and isolated space research, scrambles to recover her assets at any cost.

Rampage’s foundational opening act is an exercise in basic and plodding exposition that’s nothing more than a necessary introductory framework to put the action into motion, to get to the movie’s red meat of destroying buildings and shooting lots of weapons. It’s flat -- characters and story alike -- whether considering heroes or corporate villains. Davis is ex-special forces. Kate is a mind with a good heart. The villainess is a sexy, greedy mastermind with a bumbling idiot of a brother whose sole purpose is comic relief. Harvey is MiB with little to do other than add some swag to the movie. It's all terribly generic and dimwitted. But the movie is not out to change the world. It's formulaic but not quite to a fault. Peyton keeps the focus on building towards action until the movie's second half emerges as wall-to-wall mayhem.

And in that regard, audiences are going to get their money's worth. Rampage pushes all the right action and visual effect buttons, putting together a large-scale and seamless extravaganza that, structurally, hearkens back to yesterday's giant monster movies with all the amenities of a 21st century visual effects sensation. There are some admittedly good stretches. In the second half, the creatures run wild through Chicago, tearing up cars, smashing buildings, and taking on and taking down military equipment. As the animals grow, the approach to battle them evolves, beginning with a few guys with guns that becomes Apaches and A-10 Warthogs that becomes tanks that becomes a stealth bomber carrying MOABs (Mother of all bombs). Of course nothing works because a dead, bullet-riddled monster 50 minutes into the movie just isn’t going to cut it. But the bullets and bombs continue to fly and the destruction grows exponentially more chaotic and widespread and it's quite a bit of fun if one can sit back and enjoy the ride rather than sweating the movie's absolute lack of dramatic pull.

Johnson falls into the part with ease, unsurprising considering that he's not doing much of anything out of his San Andreas or Skyscraper comfort zone. His interactions with George are a treat, and Johnson, as always, shines in the personality game, proving he's more than a muscled physique. The rest of the cast is effectively forgettable, largely because the characters are so tiresomely stock (even Jeffrey Dean Morgan, whose portrayal of the mystery government agent has half the swag but much the same body language as his character from The Walking Dead, which is clearly now part of his DNA), but that keeps the focus where it needs to be: on the action, on Johnson, and on George and the other two creatures, all of which are big enough to carry the movie to a simplistic sweet spot of big and dumb but lots of fun.

Rampage Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Rampage bursts onto Blu-ray with a solid 1080p image. The movie was shot digitally but the resultant image appears pleasantly filmic nevertheless. Rather than flat and glossy, it's texturally adept, sharp, and complex. Facial features never struggle to find the more intimate pores and lines. Clothes appear refined, environments are complex, and even digital renderings, such as animal fur, are clearly visible and tack-sharp down to each individual strand. Various examples of destruction reveal every sharp and frayed edge, and even small details and distant objects never struggle to showcase broader definition with ease. Colors are by-and-large fine, though the Blu-ray seems to lack that last little bit of intense saturation, rendering natural greens a little dull and flesh tones a hint pale, but the palette is never cause for major alarm; it just seems a little flat. Black levels are dense and shadow details are a strength. Source or encode artifacts are not an issue. Rampage is just slightly more vivid colors away from Blu-ray perfection.

Rampage Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Rampage features a rip-roaring Dolby Atmos soundtrack. The film's first scenes set an impressive precedent for the movie. On the space station, various creaks, shooting sparks, background comms, and blaring alarms altogether create a sense of fullness and precision sound placement that individually and altogether alike effortlessly pull the listening audience into the station's cramped and quickly collapsing confines. Another high intensity action segment comes in chapter five when George awakens and escapes on a plane. The blend of high intensity music, crashes, grunts, screams, and pops of semi- and fully-automatic gunfire, the latter of which is the least intense of the sound elements and actually comes across as a little drowned out, is a standout sonic sequence for sheer aggressiveness of output. The film's extended final sequence, of course, offers a gloriously harmonic explosion of mayhem as the creatures utterly destroy large swaths of Chicago while the military throws everything it can at them to prevent further damage and death. Music is large throughout. It's spacious and aggressive and demonstrates no problems with muscling in low end support and weaving in seamlessly immersive surround goodness. Overhead channels are used mostly as a seamless support structure and less in the style of discrete components, though there are certainly some here-and-there examples of more easily distinguished and separated top layer details. Upper level activity is fairly constant, however, but there's little here that's predominately and distinctly emanating from high up. Dialogue is clear, refined, and well positioned and prioritized, though reverb at the 18-minute mark comes across as a little forced and in modest excess.

Rampage Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Rampage contains several featurettes, a gag reel, and deleted scenes. A DVD copy of the film and a Movies Anywhere digital copy code are included with purchase.

• Not Just a Game Anymore (1080p, 6:15): Cast and crew reflect on the original arcade game that inspired the movie.
• Deleted Scenes (1080p, 10:12): Several scenes appear in a cluster with no identifying markers.
• Gag Reel (1080p, 2:43).
• Rampage: Actors in Action (1080p, 10:45): A look at Peyton's direction, the extensive previz constructs and artwork, and how several scenes come together through practical and digital sets, photographic styles, stunt work, actor performances, and special effects.
• Trio of Destruction (1080p, 10:08): A review of the three monsters and the special effects that bring them to life. It explores the realities from which the plot was derived, creature design and scale, digital challenges and successes, and more.
• Attack on Chicago (1080p, 10:23): A breakdown of the role the city plays in the film, including geography, shooting in the city, set construction, digital integration, creature carnage, and more.
• Bringing George to Life (1080p, 11:53): A detailed and fascinating look at motion capture training and performance.

Rampage Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Rampage delivers high-yield effects-laden entertainment, but its substance is no more than a stable of stale stereotype characters and a stock story straight out of 50s Sci-Fi monster movies. Nevertheless, it works very well as intended; audiences will have to decide, though, if pure escapism and digital wonders are enough to cover up the near total absence of anything else of value. Warner Brothers' Blu-ray release of Rampage delivers a positive overall experience, yielding strong video, high-end audio, and a decent smattering of extra content. Recommended.