Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is going to be at your local movieplex again this weekend when he stars in Rampage, a film based on the 1986 Midway game. It's close to being the best reviewed video game movie of all time, something Johnson seems pleased by after starring in another video game movie, Doom. Something he jokes about to the official Doom Twitter account's heartbreak.
RottenTomatoes first tweeted that if the RT score for Rampage held at 53 percent, then Rampage would be the highest rated video game movie of all time. Not a high bar unfortunately for video game films.
Johnson took this opportunity to thank his fans and to say that as someone who starred in a critically panned movie adaptation of the Doom series, this might be the end of the video game movie curse. Unfortunately, the official Doom twitter account was there to witness one of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood dunk on the film. Right in front of them.
Johnson starred in a Doom film back in 2005 at the beginning of his movie career. The movie, which also starred Karl Urban, has a 19 percent on RottenTomatoes and was dismissed by critics for being pretty generic. Although one USgamer writer said Doom is actually the best video game movie.
With Rampage currently at a 50 percent RT score, it is one point above this year's Tomb Raider reboot which ended its critical run at a 49 percent. A pretty okay showing that alas did not herald the first good video game movie. However, Rampage looks fun as hell so maybe the critics aren't the most important audience for this one.
Rampage is based on the classic Midway series back from the 80s where giant monsters would fight each other while destroying a city. It was a fun arcade game that people in Hollywood decided, "Yeah, why not?" So now it's a movie.
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This one seems more "good" in the Mortal Kombat / Street Fighter way, where it's just kind of enjoying it's stupidity. Preferable to the Tomb Raider reboot strategy of taking itself way too seriously and falling flat. I enjoy a good fun stupid movie, so I might check it out!
Everything I have read and seen of this movie reminds me of those action movies from the 80’s and early 90’s. Most of them weren’t particularly good (indeed, the vast majority were terrible), and yet they are still pretty charming. Probably because they were not ashamed or afraid of reveling in their own absurdity. That seems to be exactly what Rampage is doing and, considering the source material, that might have been the best way of adapting the videogame.
Anyone who isn't excited at the mere mention of this movie is no friend of mine. From the first trailer I saw I knew I had to see this movie, and see it I shall. It's not because it's a game movie, the last one of those I saw was one of the Resident Evil movies on TV. No, it's because it's a giant monster movie with Dwayne Johnson. This damn thing literally sells itself.
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By Matt Kim
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