Ape-pocalypse now!

There are few things more likely to induce groans of derision among movie-goers than the words "video game adaptation". Those three words alone are enough to shake even the hardiest of audiences to their core; rightly so, as the sub genre has churned out some absolute shit shows since some creatively devoid executive producer somewhere decided it was a sterling idea (because most of the work is already done for you). Of course, it's turned out to be a pretty crap idea actually, with barely a handful of movies worth watching and a vast raft of terrible dross that I won't deign to drag back into conversation now because deep down I'm trying to be a good person.

Conceptually at least sometimes it made sense: Silent Hill and Resident Evil for example both had very cinematic feels to them in the first place, so that transition wasn't completely outlandish. Final Fantasy also would have made sense if the filmmakers had decided that making sense was a worthwhile endeavour, but instead we got Spirits Within and a headache trying to work out how it had anything to do with any of the games other than the logo. The less said about Uwe Boll the better, but then you get the absolute head-scratchers like Battleships. How in the name of all that's unholy did anyone have the following conversation?

Exec 1: Hey, you know this absurdly simple board game you can play with two bits of paper and a pencil if you don't even own a copy?

Exec 2: The one with no narrative, no characters and no more subtlety than blow up the other guys' ships, initially using nothing but guesswork?

Exec 1: Yeah, that's the one. Does anyone have the movie rights?

Exec 2: No more drugs for that man.

Yet somehow they managed to stretch that into a feature length alien invasion action movie. It was awful, right down to the "clever" Easter Egg of the alien torpedoes looking like the game's pegs, but it was released and at least a handful of people paid actual, real money to go see it at a cinema. Before or after the lobotomy, nobody is entirely sure. Perhaps even during.

Bearing all this vitriol in mind, you might be surprised to find I was quite looking forward to Rampage, but actually if you've been with this blog for more than 5 minutes, maybe it's not such a surprise after all. The game, if you remember it, was simply take control of a giant monster and smash up buildings and although that has roughly the same amount of narrative as your average pre-school learn-to-read book, (as much as I would pay folding money for a Spot series based on global annihilation though) let's be fair, you can never really count a movie out when it's stars the absurdly large form of Dwayne Johnson.

The set-up is thankfully short and to the point; after a brief prelude in space featuring a giant rat that I don't remember in the game (these Hollywood types, screwing with our beloved nostalgia, right?*) The Rock is a primatologist who doesn't play well with others but has a special affinity for a big albino Gorilla named George (who was in the games, suck it nostalgic whiners!) There is a predictable amount of pseudo-scientific guffery on display, with much waffle about genetic markers and aggressive behaviour modifiers and blah blah blah. Most of it is probably horse shit of the highest order, particularly the monsters being genetically programmed to rendezvous at a certain frequency pitch and destroy it, but frankly none of that makes the least shred of difference. This is the kind of blockbuster that you just need to switch off your brain for and allow the carnage to wash over you. Of course there are things that make no sense: why do the crocodile and wolf develop weird extra mutations when George just gets big and grumpy? How does an ex-Special Forces elite operator end up a respected primatologist by their mid-to-late forties? Why are all the characters painted in extremely broad strokes? If you sat down to watch this movie expecting Professor Brian Cox to pop into frame periodically to explain the veracity of the scientific method, or that Bond villain looking dude from Inside The Actor's Studio to elaborate on the subtle nuances of a 20 foot gorilla flipping people off for laughs; good luck to you, you're an idiot. This is Rampage; you need monsters, a city to destroy and some tanks to fire at them. Fortunately you get all that and the added bonus of The Rock having a whale of a time shooting guns, flying helicopters and delivering self-referential lines of dialogue whilst trying not to get upstaged by a CGI ape.

Let's be honest, pretty much everything here is either a meticulously planned set-piece or a thinly veiled segue to the next one; those set-pieces are great fun though. Commandos in the woods, apes on a plane and the obligatory three way Godzilla ending all fairly doused in the action tropes you know and love; there are a couple of surprises along the way but not exactly game-changing plot twists. The standard pantomime ‘it’s behind you’ with added wolf slobber rears its mutated and toothy head, as well as the good old fashioned ‘brainwashed protagonist being brought back by the memory of his friendship with his best buddy’ and the now classic ‘I think they missed all my vital organs’ reason for surviving a bullet to the abdomen, despite the fact that his intestinal tract would now be a swilling mess of offal, slowly oozing vital fluids and gastric juices. Walk it off son.

I couldn’t help but really enjoy it. It’s by no means a clever movie, but it isn’t pretending to be; it’s a bunch of humungofied predacious animals battering seven shades out of each other and the city while the Rock runs around shooting at them trying to save his brother from a simian mother. It’s glorious, ridiculous, explosive-ridden crap, which as all right-thinking individuals know, is the best kind.

*Apparently the rat appeared in at least the Atari Lynx version. Well played, sneaky Hollywood types.