By Joe Gibson
Introduction
Rampage, the 2018 giant
monster film about albino gorilla George, flying wolf Ralph and to a lesser
extent the mutated crocodile Lizzie might appear, at the very surface,
something unbefitting of discussion today (or in general). Nestled between the
releases of Kong Skull Island and Godzilla King of the Monsters and featuring a
monster gorilla and a monster lizard, one could view this movie as something of
a mockbuster, especially because Rampage the movie does not have a dedicated
fanbase or cult following (though a couple things related to this film do).
This film also starred major actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson but is by no means
one of his most successful movies, being a moderate financial success with
mixed critical reviews. So why does anyone, myself included, remember Rampage
2018? Well, the stories of George, Lizzie and Ralph began long ago in a
different medium than film, and the intersection of the Rampage IP with The
Rock makes this a very interesting movie to discuss.
Based on a popular video
game series about three or sometimes four or sometimes seven, occasionally 30
(and even 40) humans mutated into giant monsters, this movie inevitably would
play into kaiju film imagery for the titular rampage and also had the
development hell associated with most video game film adaptations (the rights
being secured in 2009 and the film coming out in 2018). So is it then best
described as a kaiju film (with all of its associated tropes), a video game
movie adaptation (with all of its associated pitfalls) or something else
entirely? Well, most simply, this is a Dwayne The Rock Johnson Movie if any
subgenre is the most apt.
The Dwayne Johnson Movie
This film is the third
collaboration of Johnson with director Brad Peyton, after Journey 2: The
Mysterious Island and San Andreas. Because I have not seen those movies, I
cannot provide specific commentary on the tropes of Brad Peyton and Dwayne
Johnson collaborations, but it is plainly obvious that The Rock himself is a
specific feature to modern blockbusters: a semi-sympathetic, charismatic
archetype of the strong unkillable leading man often in a law enforcement
position that does not need to grow or change too much in order to win the day.
(Obviously, there is some variation: sometimes, it is played straight and other
times, the expectation of this character leads to some subversion in the film
wherein The Rock plays an insecure or villainous character as commentary on his
formula.) The tagline to this movie is “Big Meets Bigger,” which only functions
if The Rock is already a big, larger than life figure now interacting with
monsters.
The Rock is also more
than just his character in film; due to the family friendly nature of his
blockbusters, he has a lot of clout and often producer status. In Rampage,
there are two significant impacts of The Rock’s creative input, as best as I
can tell. This film was supposed to have a darker ending, but The Rock changed
it to keep it more family friendly (though this lighter tone is also a lot more
complicated, as we’ll get into later), and, this might sound extraordinarily
silly, but the opening of this film taking place in a gratuitous Jungle
scenario with characters that will not stick around through the film strikes me
as more for The Rock than for the story.
The Rock famously has
been in Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, two Jumanji movies and Jungle Cruise
as far as movies involving jungles. Allegedly, Johnson likes jungle movies so
much because they allow him to connect with his Samoan and Hawaiian roots, but
why this has a jungle scene is less important than that it does, because, even
though Johnson, in restoring the lighter tone that a Rampage movie absolutely
should have, used his influence to serve the story and IP, the very safe modern
Hollywood blockbuster of Rampage 2018 is an immense departure from the original
Rampage games. This is something we must keep in mind going forward.
Rampage The Game(s)
In Rampage the game
(1986), you would destroy a city building by building, as you could play as
George, a man turned King Kong pastiche, Lizzie, a woman turned Ymir from 20
Million Miles to Earth pastiche (basing her sprite on Godzilla would have been
too complicated at the time because of the size of his tail), or Ralph, a man turned giant
werewolf. Some ports included Larry, who turned into a rat, but the franchise
cycled through rat characters with Curtis and Rhett later on, so a specific rat
character is less important than the idea that one of the monsters is a rat
(keep that in mind for the movie). The destruction was the main feature, and
whether or not the game functioned as a world of (mostly) endless levels for
high scores in an arcade or a narrative with powerups, secrets and monsters
gained in different cities depended on which installment you were playing
(Rampage, Rampage: World Tour, Rampage: Universal Tour, Rampage Through Time,
and Rampage Total Destruction).
The Rock’s Davis Okoye
character is not native to the games, and neither is really anyone in the cast
except for one twist that I’ll explain when it happens. In terms of significant
characters in the games, George, Lizzie and Ralph always become the monsters
you can play (though sometimes part of the gameplay is using different monsters
to unlock them as playable characters), and George will always eat a woman in a
red dress.
Different games have
different employees of the main villainous organization creating the monsters
(ScumLabs), including Dr. Betty Veronica and CEO Eustace DeMonic. Sometimes, a
news anchor orients the setting. Rampage levels can take place in small cities,
large cities, throughout the timeline and throughout the universe.
And yes because I said
universe (the third major game goes to space), this is the kind of franchise
loose and crazy enough to jump the shark without alienating its audience. In
the game Rampage Total Destruction, the monster mutations occur from drinking a
soda, so, yeah this is a very farcical and even crude (the monsters belch
amidst their destruction) tone. At the end of Total Destruction, despite the
soda causing the 40 human testers to mutate into monsters, the soda sales
skyrocket, so one can read an absurdist cynicism into these games very easily.
One question to keep in mind as we proceed is if a safe family friendly The
Rock helmed blockbuster can accommodate the expectation of that tone.
Rampage: The Dwayne
Johnson Movie
The film begins with
expository paragraphs about CRISPR and genetic editing (the new reason for the
mutations, rather than a soda) and then transitions into a cold open on a space
station called Athena 1. The interior is wrecked and Marley Shelton’s character
Dr. Kerry Atkins is the only survivor. With a test subject loose (incidentally
a mutated rat), the villain and head of company Energyne (Scum Labs was too on
the nose) Claire Wyden tasks her with securing the canisters, and then Wyden
will open the escape pod. Wyden’s threat that Atkins will come home with the
research or not at all characterizes the former’s cutthroat nature but also
proves untrue in the end. Atkins sneaks through the facility and loads 3 of
8 canisters from the lab into a storage box (for whatever reason, the box
could only fit 5 to begin with).
The mutated, very spiky
rat emerges and chases Aktins to the escape capsule, clawing at the window. She
finally ejects, but the rat has damaged the window enough for it to explode,
and Wyden’s research makes it back to Earth without Atkins. (Even with her
remote control of the capsule’s locking mechanisms, Wyden would have no way of
knowing it would explode, but she also would not care that Atkins died.)
Now, a mutated rat monster
in a Rampage story could technically be Larry, Curtis or Rhett. I’m just going
to give a minor spoiler and say that first, this is not the only strange rat in
the film, and second, there were plans for a sequel up until recently, so, if a
third rat ever appeared, that would cover all three. Consequently, I will call
this rat Larry (if the later rat is Curtis, and a hypothetical additional one
would be Rhett). Larry was only in particular versions of the original Rampage
and never came back to interact with George, Lizzie and Ralph, so it is fitting
that Larry is the star only of a cold open and never interacts with the other
monsters, consumed by a fiery explosion before the others are created.
Rather than follow up on
the canisters falling down to Earth, the next scene is the aforementioned
Jungle imagery with The Rock’s Davis Okoye leading P.J. Byrne’s Nelson (the
closest thing to a human friend Davis has), Jack Quaid’s pathetic Connor and
the young Amy played by Breanne Hill, a woman Connor is hitting on but who is
into Davis (it could be part of The Rock’s contract that even his asexual
characters need women to be attracted to him or it is just a comedic bit).
These characters, while tertiary in importance, have a good comedic dynamic
with Davis, but they will stop appearing entirely midway through act one, so I
will stop mentioning them now.
Within the jungle sector
of the San Diego Wildlife Sanctuary, Davis is trying to introduce a young male
Paavo into the gorilla troupe. Paavo, agitated due to a lack of immediate
relationship with the females and, later in competition with the albino gorilla
George, turns out to be merely a vehicle for George’s development. George can
communicate with Davis, has a twisted sense of humor where he will pretend to antagonize
people, and grows sympathetic to Paavo after learning poachers killed Paavo’s
family. Most importantly, George is the kind of character that can have a
genuine emotional moment with Davis and lure him into a fistbump…only to flip
him off instead…multiple times.
As should be obvious by
now, George, in this version of events, was never human. Part of this is for
realism. A gorilla becoming a giant gorilla is more realistic than a human
becoming a giant gorilla. Making George an albino gorilla helps him stand out
from King Kong but also lends an angle of exoticism, both in terms of mystique
(the gorilla that was already special becomes more special) but also possibly
in subtext. As is revealed later, poachers also threatened George and his
family when he was very young. After he gets mutated, the military and Energyne
will be hunting George with guns, and it will be up to Davis to save him again
(different circumstance, but the larger than life stakes are allegorical to the
character’s mundane expected stakes as an exotic animal).
There is a little more
to it than that though. When directly confronted as to why he prefers the
company of his dogs to women, Davis responds that animals are easier to
understand and defines the relationship as such where an animal will lick or
eat you if they like or dislike you. Now, technically speaking, this simplicity
is untrue of George. George veils his sentiments through a very human penchant
for jokes, and there is a human-like intimacy between Davis and George. At this
point, I should clarify again. Davis is asexual, or at least there is nothing
to suggest any sexual instincts in him throughout this film. All the intimacy
he shows be it with George or Dr. Kate Caldwell or Agent Harvey Russell is
friendly rapport, but the film shows a reticence of his to connect with people,
then the film shows a friendly relationship with George that operates in this
weird area between pet and friend, and Davis finally goes on a journey that
involves him making new lifelong friends. The decision to regress George into
an animal came with actual thematic purpose.
Finally, the canisters
fall: one near George, one that a wolf gets a quick whiff of, and the last in
the Florida Everglades (it’ll be a while until we follow up on that last one).
George gets a more sustained blast of green gas from the canister but directly
breathes in less of it than the wolf, and the crocodile in Florida swallows the
canister whole (just keep in mind the levels of exposure to the mutagen for act
three). When Davis returns, George is having a really rough time, scared of his
new size and aggression that resulted in him hurting a Grizzly bear. Davis
retrieves the canister.
In Chicago, we meet
Claire and Brett Wyden, the latter having a destructive tantrum and the former
acting cooler and collected. I don’t want to poison the well by coming out of
the gate with this, but there is really not a lot to these characters. Brett is
very frazzled and concerned about the consequences to their company Energyne
after the space station destruction, but his sister Claire, callously, thinks
that this is an opportunity to test their Project Rampage. That will be their
dynamic in every scene, and there are no additional layers and nothing Davis
will learn about the world or himself by fighting them. One could technically
read the eventual platonic partnership of Davis and Kate Caldwell as a mirror
version of this dynamic where Brett is weak but Davis is strong, and Claire is
sociopathic where Kate is empathetic, but that is the deepest examination their
characters permit.
Claire subcontracts out
securing the canister in Wyoming that affected the wolf to a team of
mercenaries led by Joe Manganiello’s Burke. Now, there is a 1 in 3 chance the
Wydens send mercenaries to any of the canisters, but I find it kind of funny
that the one that they first located and then sent a team to was the most
remote contact sight in the mountains where Burke explicitly says few people
live. If they sent the team to either of the other locations, the movie does
not happen the same way. Interestingly, in the back of the Wydens’ office,
there is literally a Rampage arcade machine, and the movie mentions later on
that the the internet names the wolf Ralph, so I think the implication is that
Rampage the games exist in this film, and it is just a massive coincidence that
one of the affected animals happened to already be named George.
Finally, the film
introduces Dr. Katherine Caldwell played by Naomie Harris, who is late for work
but drops everything to learn more about the Energyne shuttle debris and where
it landed (the news reports the San Diego incident to her, not the Wyoming
report that Claire received. Again it is 1 in 3 odds that she hears about and
goes to any given location, so whatever).
Back to Burke, he
secures the empty canister but finds evidence that one wolf slaughtered the
rest of its pack, and some exposition with Davis explains the specifics of
George’s and so also Ralph’s aggression. Davis promises to help George, and
Kate swoops in. They are standoffish, with Kate claiming her former Energyne
ties as contemporary and Davis only really listening to her after she describes
George’s symptoms to him and also the DNA components: growth rate of a shark
and blue whale, strength of a rhinoceros beetle, regeneration of the African
spiny mouse, and speed of a cheetah. Caldwell claims she innovated CRISPR and
is the only one who can cure George, as George breaks out for a mini rampage
until he gets tranquilized enough times to allow for capture. With those stakes
established, let us return to Burke and his team joking about how easy it will
be to take the wolf down.
Ralph runs through the
trees, obviously massive in size. Burke clips him with a tranquilizer, and
Ralph goes down, but, when they get to where he was, he is waiting to take them
down one by one. It is a very effective scene evocative of a similar scenario
in Jurassic World 2015 wherein The Indominus Rex systematically kills a team
meant to secure it, and this is also similar to a scene in the later film
Godzilla King of the Monsters where flying monster Rodan takes down a team
aircraft meant to deter him systematically one by one with impressive
dogfighting ability and barrel rolls. As a sort of middle point between these
two, Ralph leaps around and even sprouts squirrel-like flaps to glide through
the air and better kill his pursuers.
Burke is soon the last
man standing, calling for a ride out, and we get a better look at Ralph when he
destroys the copter meant to fly Burke and his team out. Ralph is still in the
general shape of a wolf but uncanny, skinny and almost stretched (George was
not getting enough food while being fed, so Ralph obviously would be even more
hungry) and covered in sharp quills. Burke feels Ralph’s saliva drip on him,
but there is nothing he can do to save himself.
It is a shame for Joe
Manganiello to leave the movie so soon. Burke was a very engaging character,
and, as a strong hired gun with no sanctity for animal life, he would have
represented a very interesting foil to Davis, especially if Burke were a
poacher outside of the attempted mission on Ralph. Burke (a strong leader that
gets along with people but obeys money not morals) would have been so much more
thematically interesting than the Wydens (heartless and pathetic capitalists)
that it feels like an actual wasted opportunity to not have him be the primary
villain in Davis’ story, but it does not ruin the movie by any means.
Very coincidentally
happening right after the death of Burke, the film introduces a new character
to be adversarial to Davis for a while. Jeffrey Dean Morgan plays OGA (other
government agency) agent Harvey Russell, who was sent in to clean up the mess
and is taking George, Davis and Kate into custody via plane. Russell is confident
that the cage and sedatives can keep George’s healing, metabolism and
aggression in check until the plane lands. He will be proven wrong very soon,
but first he measures security clearance with Davis to exposit that Davis was
on an anti-poaching task force and that Kate Caldwell no longer works with
Energyne.
Claire reveals to Brett
that she has a backup plan: use the radio towers they happen to have to
broadcast a signal that the animals will respond to (because of the CRISPR
thing, just don’t question it) to lure them to Chicago, at which point they
will administer the “Chill Pill” cure they made for the canister’s aggression.
The low wave radio signal diverts Ralph and a now giant but unseen crocodile
from what they were doing and wakes up George. A skirmish occurs in the plane,
and Davis (because he is The Rock) does not die from a rage fueled super strong
gorilla throwing a large metal box at his head. George kills pretty much
everyone, but the plane’s destruction happens directly because of a bullet
ricocheting. Davis saves Kate and Russell but has to pin down George in the
falling plane (what is worse is that he has to swing Kate, a woman he barely
trusts right now, in order to make this choice that harms his best friend).
Russell wakes up in
Davis’ arms (again this sounds a certain way, but Davis is asexual by all
accounts), and the three touch down in a field with the plane but no George
corpse, meaning he survived and ran off. Davis saving Russell’s life has
sufficiently ingratiated Okoye to Harvey, and Davis even shares a smile with
Harvey Russell. It immediately becomes clear that Davis is still very uneasy
about working with Kate because she lied, but she gets him to explain the real
reason he hates people through the example of the poachers he saved George
from. Kate then explains that she dabbled in CRISPR only to help endangered
species and then her sick brother, but it was the Wyden siblings that put it to
use as weapons.
I already said that the
best faith interpretation of this movie is to contrast the Wydens to Davis and
Kate as two platonic duos. Now you might be asking why I am not just
contrasting the pairs of siblings and allowing for Kate and Davis to be love
interests since they just intimately shared personal details. For Kate, she
just wants to take Energyne down, but, more importantly, right after these two
have codified their bond based on the intimate sharing of life details, they
fist bump. Not only is a fist bump explicitly a non sexual gesture compared to
a hug or handhold (each of which can also be innocuous), but Davis explicitly
fistbumps George, his friend, connecting the relationships visually. (Keep in
mind this is a The Rock blockbuster, and, on the spot, I can only think of
other The Rock films wherein he has some explicit mention of romantic or sexual
interest.)
Russell has finally
gotten the three a ride back to an army base monitoring George and Ralph.
Interestingly, George and Ralph are coordinating their voyage, even though the
signal made George more aggressive than otherwise. The military is unwilling to
work with Davis and Kate even though Russell advocates for them, so Davis and
Kate escape a couple of soldiers to find the medical evacuation helicopter to
make it to the city. Russell catches them, but it turns out he is there to give
them the keys.
After a visual gag
lampshading that Davis should not be able to fly the copter with any precision
or accuracy, he flies it to Chicago without an issue (he is The Rock after
all). George and Ralph are also en route, and the military finally declares
evacuation as Russell reports back to Davis. George and Ralph move down
streets, destroying military vehicles and buildings, and Ralph and a regular
dog have a stand-off. Ralph reveals he can shoot his quills and so one less
plane in the area. As the military is taking heavy losses, the massive
(compared to George and Ralph) mutated crocodile surfaces and makes herself
known taking out a bus-full of people. Unnamed in the film, this is obviously
Lizzie to round out the big three Rampage monsters. Lizzie’s mutations are more
size based, but she also has tusks and a spiked carapace.
To combat the monsters,
the military’s plan is to drop MOABs on not fully evacuated U.S. soil. Russell
antagonizes the commander until he orders him to leave, gets a report on where
information pertaining to Project Rampage would be (but Kate knows what floor
to go to anyways), and secures a ride to the action.
Meanwhile, Davis and
Kate break into Energyne’s labs to find the antidote, and Claire, Brett and
Claire’s as yet unseen rat in a cage are preparing to go back down to the labs
to find the antidote to leave. Claire has just, for some reason, changed
costume into a red dress, communicating how she is not taking the high stakes very
seriously. After a standoff where Claire explains that the chill pill will not
undo the mutations but just stop further growth and aggression, Claire shoots
Davis with a gun in front of Kate. Because Claire just taunted Kate about the
death of her brother and is now taking Davis from her, the film is coding the
relationship as platonic. I do not want to keep harping on this, but
legitimately there is actual evidence that the two leads only see each other as
sibling replacements, which is interesting. (The games are pretty aromantic,
and, as far as sexual content, they were more focused on the kind of bits where one of the monsters, after getting miniaturized, would fall between a character's breasts.)
The monsters all reach
the Energyne building at the same time, and the imagery of George, Ralph and
Lizzie climbing a building destroying it on the way up is taken straight out of
the games. George reaches the top first, and Brett runs back into the building
to try to escape while George damages the escape copter. Davis pulls Kate out
of danger because of course he’s not dead: he’s The Rock. (This is a very fun
action blockbuster that I enjoy a lot, but it just should be said that The Rock
constantly has more plot armor than the monsters.)
Kate puts the chill pill
in Claire’s purse and feeds her to George. The cure is not immediate because
George will have to digest it now, but, as you probably forgot I alluded to
because it is hard to foreshadow this without tipping my hand too much, Claire
Wyden turned out to be a stealth adaptation of the woman in the red dress that
George eats in the games. Is this neat? Certainly. Is this worth depriving us
of better written villains?
Anyway, Russell has
arrived at the base of the Energyne building to arrest Brett, who managed to
run down the entire set of stairs in the skyscraper. Observing the falling
rubble outside and taunting Brett, Russell agrees to let him go if he hands
over a laptop and the rat, and I will explain why I think that rat should be
called Curtis in a second. Rubble crushes Brett, and Russell and Curtis escape
unscathed somehow.
Now, this test rat must
be very important. It is explicitly Claire’s rat, and she is not the type of
person to care about the wellbeing of another animal. It must not have enough
of the Project Rampage pathogen in it to replicate, but there is something that
motivates not only the Wydens but Russell, who now knows about all their
operations, to preserve it. I suspect that it would have to become mutated in a
sequel with how weirdly important it is to the climax of this movie (there were
plans for a sequel until recently), so I will call it Curtis because we already
called the cold open rat Larry. Curtis was the rat of the next generation of
monsters (alongside lobster Ruby and rhinoceros Boris), so it is fitting that
the lab rodent implied to be a test subject escapes this movie unscathed,
not yet interacting with the first generation monsters.
Speaking of Ralph,
Lizzie and George, just like in the games, they have caused enough damage for
the building to come down. Since the helicopter cannot take off but is still
mostly functional, Davis and Kate ride the building as it falls. None of this
agitates the gunshot wound in Davis’ abdomen because why would it? I suppose if
you wanted an in universe answer for Davis’ survival, he does come into contact
with the canister, and, if the mutation is proportional to the amount of green
gas inhaled, there being no visible green gas but likely still some residue
could mean that he has some regeneration and the aggression we see him display.
There is no evidence whatsoever that the filmmakers intended that though, and
Davis gets less aggressive without any antidote by just carrying out his
character arc of learning to trust people.
George reunites with
Davis, cured from his aggression, and they have more comedic banter. It turns
out Ralph and Lizzie both survived the building collapse too, and Davis and Kate
try to notify the military to call off the airstrike due to the presence of
civilians and a docile George. Well, Davis entrusts Kate with notifying the
military and then helps George fight the other monsters. There was no way The
Rock wasn’t going to factor into the final fight. After observing that Ralph
flies, Davis sics Ralph on himself so that Lizzie will intercept Ralph and
decapitate him. From then on, it is a chase over rubble with Lizzie singling
out Davis to chase, George saving Davis and then Davis saving George, rinse and
repeat.
Davis should not be
outrunning a giant lizard while inhaling dangerous amounts of smoke having
already sustained a gunshot wound, and the existence of giant monsters in a
script doesn’t mean we can ignore suddenly indestructible men (the premise is
giant monsters, which does not require humans to have the durability of
boulders). But again it feels like such a weird thing to complain about because
within the Dwayne The Rock Johnson movie subcategory, the premise is unkillable
Dwayne in action movie scenario, and the games would absolutely do something
like this but just play it more for laughs.
George gets impaled by a
giant rebar as the bombs are about to drop. All Davis can do is get into an
abandoned military plan and fire all of its guns at Lizzie to get her off of
George. In a more serious movie, this would be a fine last stand sacrifice
scene, but Davis just narrowly rolls away into another chase (this third act
has more chasing than most slashers it seems), and George comes in with the
last minute save, stabbing Lizzie through the brain with the rebar before she
can kill Davis.
George lays down
succumbing to his wounds. As Davis mourns, to pay off a brick joke from the
beginning of the film, George laughs when he thinks Davis is crying, ever the
mischievous trickster. If you thought George was actually going to die,
technically he was, but The Rock changed this scene to keep him alive for a
family friendly note. (Also after Davis survived everything he did, it would
seem hypocritical for the actual giant monster to die.) George still has
regeneration and so will be fine if he can just get his bearings for a second.
And to close out on something that feels the most like the games, George makes
a crude sex joke.
Rampage 2: World Tour?
Before I wrap up, I
would like to speculate on what a Rampage movie sequel would have looked like.
Even though all three monsters originally were intended to die, and George was
the only one saved by The Rock during production, it would be a wasted
opportunity to make a movie that only involves one of them (especially if the
alternative is a franchise that could just as easily be called Curious George).
The return of Ralph is at least non-negotiable to me, because the concept that
Ralph would immediately eat his entire pack but then make a new pack with
George until George is cured from the aggression is the most interesting thing
that this movie had no inclination to explore more than just showing. The games
have exactly the right kind of tone to just bring back the monsters without
explaining, but the movie is a little more serious. Thankfully, cinematic Ralph
and Lizzie do have (admittedly somewhat shaky) avenues for revival.
All three of these
monsters have advanced regeneration (to the point that George is able to
survive mortal wounds), and Ralph and Lizzie who both suffered basically just
head trauma (decapitation or impalation), MIGHT be able to regrow their brains,
and that should get rid of the increased aggression from their mutation (if you
were to regrow just your own brain, likely all your emotions and memories would
be lost because those are separate electrical signals).
I feel the urge to
further justify a monster regenerating its brain. It is really stupid, but it
has happened before in the kaiju genre. The end of Reptilicus implies the beast
will fully regenerate, same as the endings of Godzilla Minus One 2023 and
Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All Out Attack 2001 (GMK). As
the main plot of GMK, Godzilla regenerated fully (though with some spiritual
help) from his Oxygen Destroyer disintegration, and, as a plot point in Rebirth
of Mothra 3, Grand King Ghidorah literally regrows his entire body from I
believe a piece of his tail (though the way the movie is shot might also imply
that the tail became separate monster Desghidorah, and Grand King Ghidorah just
wills himself back into existence somehow. Not sure which is better for the
sake of this discussion).
If that is too crazy,
then anything that consumed the body parts of the fallen Ralph and Lizzie could
take on their mutations and become Ralph 2 and Lizzie 2. There is already a dog
on scene that had a moment with Ralph, and Lizzie is so massive, something is
going to get a chance to scavenge (that would even be a way to get the more
bipedal look of the games for Lizzie in a sequel).
Okay, taking for granted
that Ralph and Lizzie would be in the sequel had it not been canceled, because
I will die on this hill that they should be, they cannot be the main villains
again, and that is where the other canisters on the cold open rocket are
relevant. By my count, there were 5 remaining that we did not see afflict any
animals. That rounds out the monster cast, and, since the second game was
called World Tour, and Davis is friends with OGA agent Harvey Russell, by all
accounts, the obvious avenue for this sequel is Davis and George traveling
across the world battling mutations.
I would be remiss not to
mention that a post credits scene exists though not on the standard DVD
release, showing that a squid (most likely as an homage to Cal from Total
Destruction) has been mutated, so Cal or an eventually fully mutated Curtis
emerging after some rampage in Russell’s OGA would be likely main villains, but
I personally would use Boris the rhino (since he’s one of the main Second
Generation monsters) for that role and add some semblance of a juxtaposition if
Boris also has a handler like George has Davis, but Boris and his handler could
be twist villains (maybe even being controlled by aliens if the studio would
have been optimistic enough to justify greenlighting Rampage: Universal Tour to
make this a trilogy). And, if you would argue that the three canisters in this
movie are the only ones that survived reentry from space, then Cal the squid
proves this wrong anyway (and Curtis the rat could easily become mutated by
Russell).
Conclusion
In conclusion, I might
have spent an ungodly amount of time thinking about pretty much just the movie
in this franchise known for either its games or the wealthy Hollywood actor who
is now too busy to make another film in this series, and, frankly, that is because
I think the movie, ironically enough stands out on its own, despite the fact
that it only exists because of clashing visions.
Most forms of literary
criticism rely on “Death of the Author,” most charitably because it is a lot to
expect every critic to also be capable of writing a biography of the original
author and least charitably so that the critic can be propped up as the
ultimate authority even over the author and audience (just look up New
Criticism and its intentional and affective fallacies). There is an extent to
which it is true that anyone who interacts with a now dead film franchise can
claim ownership of it, but I find it an unnecessary added challenge to fully
divorce a stimuli from its rhetorical situation. (If you refuse to accept that
The Rock will be unkillable in a film he produces, then you need to say that
the canister mutated him, and, as I explained, that really is not that
tenable.)
The meat of my analyses
just focus on how the text interacts with itself for logical consistency, and
the consistency or inconsistency of the world and plot are usually enough of
the author to interact with. But when there comes a moment I cannot explain
logically, I feel the need to attempt to explain it and see if it truly is an
issue or not (author intent helps). George surviving is not fully a plot hole,
because it is an inevitable intersection of a lighthearted game tone and
lighthearted The Rock tone. I can then extrapolate, as I did earlier, that it
means Lizzie and Ralph could survive, and that is a tenable reading I think
even though I created that part, not the film. Criticism is in conversation
with the text, and I find it in poor taste to speak over what it is trying to
say without hearing it out first (but also, it is not often necessary to go in
too much depth outside of for clarification purposes).
I like this movie a lot
and usually just watch it on its own without considering other The Rock movies
or refreshing my knowledge on the games. It is a lot to remember, and I find
the movie fun enough to where I have more positive memories associated with
this piece of media than most other The Rock films (with some exceptions) or
the games themselves. Though my primary allegiance is to Godzilla, Gamera and
Kong, I really enjoy other franchises when they have the opportunity to let
loose on the kaiju rampages.
I put this movie
somewhere around a 6 out of 10 because, while it also has unique issues, I
think there are some direct 1 to 1 comparisons to movies like Godzilla vs Kong
(around a 7 or 8 on my scale) where it either does better or worse than GvK.
Walter Simmons was a egotistical sociopath like Claire Wyden, but there was
more of an attempt with him to tie into themes of manmade domination over
nature. Conversely, Kate’s navigation of Energyne’s one building makes more
sense than how Bernie Hayes was able to apply his knowledge of one Apex
facility’s layout to one completely across the world (the throwaway line
justification in GvK is literally “Lizard people built all their facilities the
same way. I can find the exit.”).
Most importantly, he
connection between Davis and George, especially how their devotion to each
other pays off in the climax, is a compelling throughline, and GvK, in
replicating similar dynamics with Kong and Jia’s connection but also Nathan’s
growing respect for Kong that culminates in putting himself in danger to save
Kong, uses these same building blocks but distributes them to make more
characters more significant in not only the third act but the action scenes in
acts 1 and 2 (read my Godzilla vs Kong review for more information on how
Nathan’s scenes with Kong before the third act help his arc and the film’s
storytelling https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2023/06/review-godzilla-versus-kong-2021-remake.html). The amount of
personality these monsters show off in both films is also a major facet of my
enjoyment, and Rampage’s 120 million budget but plentiful kaiju action predates
the 135 million budget of Godzilla x Kong, the cheapest film in the
Monsterverse and yet also the one with the most kaiju scenes.
In that sense, this
middle of the road video game adaptation modest success Dwayne The Rock Johnson
blockbuster did leave its impact on the larger kaiju genre, which is the reason
I think it warranted discussion today. Thank you for reading, and if you are
interested in more reviews of creature movies, we have written some including
Steve Stones’ recent review of Monster From The Ocean Floor: https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2025/02/monster-from-ocean-floor-great-1950s.html
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