Film

Rampage

Name: Rampage
Genre: Action, Adventure, Science Fiction
Released: 2018
Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris, Malin Akerman, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jake Lacy

A video-game adaptation played completely straight and completely enormous: Dwayne Johnson bonds with a gorilla, corporate greed turns him and two other animals into skyscraper-sized monsters, and Chicago pays for it. It's dumb in the best way — earnest, huge, occasionally sweet, entirely uninterested in subtlety. Watch it for scale, not for plot.

TMDb rating

6.5

If you liked this

Kong: Skull Island2017

A gigantic ape with real personality, gorgeous jungle carnage, and a 'Nam-war aesthetic that gives the destruction a strange, trippy beauty. Closest cousin to George's whole vibe.

But The human cast is enormous and mostly disposable — you're there for Kong, not the ensemble around him.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters2019

Multiple city-flattening titans, apocalyptic scale, and monster-on-monster brawls shot with genuine awe. If Rampage's climax was your favourite part, this is three hours of that instinct.

But The human subplot is inert filler between fights, and the plot logic barely survives contact with itself.

San Andreas2015no page yet

Peak Dwayne-Johnson-carries-a-disaster-on-his-shoulders energy, with earthquakes instead of gorillas. Big rescues, bigger set pieces, a man who solves geology with his forearms.

But It's formula through and through — you'll call every beat before it lands.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

King Kong1933

Same emotional bedrock as George and Davis: a man's bond with an extraordinary creature that's exploited by others and destroyed for it. Kong invented the moral question Rampage borrows wholesale.

The original giant-creature-destroys-a-city film, and the template for every one on this list — stop-motion effects, a tragic captured beast, and a man who genuinely cared for him before it all went wrong.

But Creaky pacing and dated effects by modern standards; this asks patience Rampage never does.

Skyscraper2018no page yet

Johnson again, this time against a burning tower instead of a monster, with the same appetite for absurd, physics-defying set pieces and pure survival spectacle.

But The stunts require you to switch off your brain entirely; the story is thinner than the building's glass.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle2017

Johnson leads an ensemble through jungle chaos and rampaging wildlife with more jokes and less devastation — same star, lighter register, still hugely fun.

But Tonally it's comedy-adventure, not disaster spectacle — don't expect city-levelling stakes.

Pacific Rim2013

Del Toro's love letter to kaiju and mecha delivers colossal creature fights with genuine visual imagination and craftsmanship rarely seen at this scale.

But Characters exist mainly to set up the next brawl, and it runs a bit long for the plot it has.

The Meg2018

A prehistoric shark the size of a bus, Jason Statham punching the ocean, and a script that knows exactly how silly it is. Pure creature-feature comfort food.

But It never aims higher than B-movie fun — if you want tension, this isn't it.

Jurassic World2015

Genetically engineered monsters, corporate hubris, and a theme park turning into a killing field — the same DNA-tampering-goes-wrong engine, dinosaur-flavoured.

But Franchise fatigue is real, and the beats will feel very familiar if you've seen the original.

Godzilla vs. Kong2021

Two icons of giant-monster cinema finally collide, with visuals built purely for spectacle and nostalgia. Great popcorn, minimal thinking required.

But Human characters are almost an afterthought — the film knows why you're there and doesn't pretend otherwise.

Okja2017

Strip away the blockbuster scale and Rampage's real plot is here: a corporation genetically engineers a creature, a human bond complicates the exploitation, and the film asks who the monster actually is.

Bong Joon-ho's fable about a girl and her genetically engineered super-pig — tender, strange, and furious about the corporations that manufacture life for profit. Funny, then devastating, then furious again.

But It swings hard into satire and heartbreak; anyone wanting monster-movie spectacle will find this too sincere, too sad, too slow.

Chernobyl2019

Rampage plays corporate science-gone-wrong for spectacle; Chernobyl is the real-world version of that exact premise, stripped of monsters and played entirely straight, right down to the cover-up.

The most serious possible version of 'a science experiment escapes human control and lays waste to everything around it' — grounded, meticulous, and genuinely frightening because none of it is exaggerated.

But Bleak, slow-burning, and true — there's no hero to root for and no antidote arriving in the third act.