The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is taking the world by storm for the second weekend in a row, just like its predecessor. For decades, video games resulted in notoriously poor adaptations, but now with the Mario movies doing well commercially and Fallout doing well critically on the small screen, it seems clear that the film and TV industries have finally figured out how to take a video game and make it function as a cinematic narrative. As recently as the 2010s, that didn’t really happen. The Pirates of the Caribbean-esque Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Need for Speed, Hitman: Agent 47, Warcraft, Assassin’s Creed, Tomb Raider, they all ranged from laughable to, at the very best, wholly average.
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However, the decade actually closed out on a pretty good note for this particular subgenre. First was Rampage, in 2018, then Pokémon Detective Pikachu in 2019. Both are fast-paced adventures with solid casting and a palpable sense of fun. Why do we bring this up? Because Rampage turns eight years old today, April 13th.
What Makes Rampage Work?
Rampage was directed by Brad Peyton, who had already collaborated with Dwayne Johnson on Journey 2: The Mysterious Island and San Andreas, one of the actor’s biggest hits. Peyton knows what Johnson vehicles need to work, which are scripts that allow him to display both his charm and physicality, a handful of bombastic set-pieces, and a tone that remains light (and generally appropriate for the entire family, without being too kiddy or too adult) even when the story establishes fairly high stakes. In the case of Rampage those stakes include a gliding wolf, a King Kong-size gorilla, and a big ‘ol crocodile.
Speaking of the film’s monsters, which wouldn’t feel that off in a MonsterVerse movie, their origins are different from the arcade games that serve as this movie’s source material. In the movie, George the gorilla, Ralph the wolf, and Lizzie the crocodile are exposed to pathogens contained in containers produced by the shady company Energyne.
In the games, there’s still certainly a mutation element, but the causes vary and, here’s the kicker, they all started out as humans. George didn’t start out as a gorilla, he was a man turned into one by experimental vitamins. Lizzie was a woman exposed to toxic waste who turned into a Godzilla-esque monster (which, as mentioned, was simplified to a mega crocodile in the movie). And, as for Ralph, he turned into a massive werewolf courtesy of a food additive.
All in all, the Rampage movie isn’t all that similar to the games. But to be fair, it probably wouldn’t have worked to have a trio of people mutate into King Kong, Godzilla, and a mega Wolf Man then, after a brief period of time, shrink back to their now unclothed selves. It does have a certain similarity in that a big shady science-focused company is involved, though the company name in the games (Scumlabs) was definitely better than Energyne.
At the end of the day, Rampage is a kooky, time-passer of a Saturday afternoon movie. You don’t really need to watch it more than once, but at least it delivers on third act kaiju carnage and gives Jeffrey Dean Morgan a fun supporting role. It also had an early role for Jack Quaid, one year before he started playing Hughie Campbell on The Boys, which just kicked off its final season.
Many fans of the game weren’t all that enamored with the film, and fair enough to that, but it does fit in nicely with the remainder of the Johnson’s mid to late 2010s high budget solo vehicles. Specifically, Hercules, San Andreas, and Skyscraper. Not high art, but all of them play to his strengths and result in worse ways to spend two hours.
Did you see Rampage when it first hit theaters? Do you think it would have worked had they stuck to the style and (thin) plot of the video games? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
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