Brad Peyton follows Roland Emmerich's footsteps in 'Rampage'

Warner Bros. Phils

Disaster films are my thing. That's why one of my favorite directors is Roland Emmerich. He directed some of my fave films like The Day After Tomorrow and 2012. These are movies for pleasure that I'm sure a lot of people go to the movies for this kind of flick. Brad Peyton is starting to follow Emmerich's footsteps with his back-to-back disaster films, and as always, it shuts down your brain and makes you want to grab some more of your pop corn for entertainment. It's that kind of movie.


Peyton reunites with his San Andreas lead Dwayne Johnson in Rampage, an over-the-top movie about monstrous animals destroying the city of Chicago. Run of the mill premise but the execution is pretty over-the-top. Everything you expect in a monster vs monster movie is here, and then some. There's a flying giant wolf for crying out loud. Yes, it has wings and it literally flies. Then there's this Godzilla-like giant crocodile against an albino version of Kingkong. It's basically a preview of Kong vs Godzilla.

Malin Akerman in Rampage, Warner Bros.Phils

It's a wild ride for sure, and it's almost like a video game movie. Plus, it has a comedic duo of villains in Malin Akerman and Jake Lacy, which to be honest, is kind of surprising that they took on their roles that are close to being buffoons. It sure as hell looked like they embraced it though, and that's how you do it when you sign yourself up in a movie like this. Same with the Oscar nominated Naomie Harris. She's there for the comedy of it all.

Rampage is an entertaining movie for sure, that is almost doesn't mind the stakes of the concept. It literally destroyed Chicago but all they care about is defeating the monstrous animals, and when they did, grins are all over their faces like nothing happened. Their not even apologetic. It just knows it's there to entertain, and doesn't want you to further contemplate of its logic. How they included the relationship of human to animals is pretty commendable though but when you ponder upon it, which you shouldn't, it's still feel a bit wacky.