“Well, I can tell you right now, we’re not gonna put him on a plane.”

From Rampage.

What a science experiment for Energyne Industries goes terribly wrong on a space station, one scientist/astronaut tries to gather the remaining samples before the station is destroyed.  Unfortunately, a damaged escape pod leads to the death of the crew and the scattering of the samples upon reentry into earth’s atmosphere.  On the ground, Davis Okoye (Dwayne Johnson) works at a wildlife sanctuary where he trains and cares for the gorillas, primarily an albino gorilla named George.  George is a large gorilla, but he is also kind, gentle, and well trained by Davis.  When one of the samples crashes into the gorilla enclosure, George inhales some unknown substance from the canister and he instantly begins to grow in size and become aggressive.  Energyne’s Claire (Malin Akerman) and Brett Wyden (Jake Lacy) are eager to get their samples back, but after learning that all that the samples have been inhaled by George and a wild wolf in Wyoming, they dispatch a team to bring back the wolf, dead or alive.  The mega-sized animals are greatly underestimated by all the military agencies that are sent after them (including Joe Manganiello, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Demetrius Grosse), so the Wyden siblings set off a homing beacon that will attract the animals to them, allowing them to cover their illegal and dangerous DNA modifications.  Disgraced Energyne scientist Kate (Naomie Harris) goes off to meet Davis to help him find a way to stop and save George before he wipes out the city of Chicago.

This is the kind of movie viewers are almost ashamed to admit enjoyment of, but the story really does captivate.  Johnson does well in the lead human role playing well off the others around him; he’s the kind of hero that has it together just enough to make it believable, but also lets it fall apart enough so that he’s relatable.  There are some questions that hinder the story, such as the varying amount of DNA modifications among the monsters, but the action is the main focus and carries the story well.  George is unnecessarily crude at times and there is more gore that was expected from the trailers, but overall, Rampage is a big, fun adventure from start to finish.

| Rated: PG-13 | Running Time: 115 minutes |Genre: action/monster/sci-fi |

||Family Viewing||Cursing: 5 of 10|Nudity: 0 of 10|Sexuality: 1 of 10|Gore: 6 of 10

|AVAILABLE FOR HOME VIEWING|