Of course the wolf can fly! (Rampage 2018)

199.

Rampage

 

 

 

 

7.5/10

 

Here comes Dwayne Johnson again. Does this guy ever take a day off? Together with Jeffery Dean Morgan, they bring us a movie based on a video game, which I never had the chance to play. This is yet another movie that brought us a trailer that made it look like a very interesting watch. I love a good creature feature. It looked a really interesting idea for a story with a mix of these giant 'monsters' fighting and Dwayne Johnson smack bang in the middle of it all. Could this one have a better storyline to go along with it being graphically great, unlike skyscraper? Or will this movie be nothing more than another forgettable game adaptation?

We are quickly thrust into the '90s and looking at a piece of tech called CRISPR, which is developed and quickly used for all the wrongs reasons. In the present day the tech has been sent up to space to experiment with and one of those experiments, a lab rat, has mutated and killed the entire crew except one lone survivor. She contacts Energyne and she is ordered by the CEO to bring the samples back to Earth or never to return at all. She heads to get some samples, being tracked in the shadows by a huge rat and is quickly tracked down and enters the escape pod with the rat as a partner. The pod isn't in the best shape though and explodes, killing its passengers and scattering the samples across the country.

At an animal sanctuary in San Diego, one of its workers with apes, Davis Okoye played by Dwayne Johnson, leads his co-workers into one of the pens to meet Pavo, who attempts to find a female to mate with. Davis talks the ape down gentle, just before a massive albino gorilla comes rushing in, causing Conner, one of the co-workers, to freak out and upset Pavo in the process. He runs after Conner before George knocks him on his arse and heads after Conner himself. It turns out that he's only messing about and Davis has to have a word with his ape buddy. After their shift, the other co-worker Amy, who has obviously taken a shine to Davis, asks him out for a drink. He rejects it and once asked by Nelson, his mate, why he is closer to animals than people, his reaction is that they just 'get him'.

That exact night, one of the mutated samples makes it into George's enclosure and he hurts himself by touching it. Another lands into a forest and is greeted by a wolf. The last finally lands in a river in Florida and we know what Florida is famous for other than Disney. Davis is called in first thing in the morning to check on George. Nelson tells him that he's actually in the Bear enclosure. There, they find a dead bear and a scared George, hiding in a cave. He has scratches on his chest, signalling that he was attacked first but as he steps out, we can see that he has grown several feet taller.

 News reports have started to hit the airwaves about the mutagen. Kate Caldwell, played by Naomie Harris sees this on the news, as does the brother and sister duo of Brett and Claire Wyden. They are the ones in charge of the mutagen and are freaking out over the money they are set to be losing. Claire is actually impressed that the experiments for 'project rampage' are successful. She suggests employing a private military group in order to fix things, if shit does spill over. Kate has headed into the sanctuary to speak to Davis about what has happened. I'm not too sure what her role is yet but this is usually a lead up to the male and female duo to save the day. All I do know is that I finally recognise her as Calypso from Pirate of the Caribbean. She actually then claims to work for Energyne and was inside working on the mutagen itself. She may be able to stop the growing and when we see George next, he is inside a cage, growing by the minute, until he breaks free. The ape is scared and knows nothing else than to escape. He terrifies the guests and as Davis runs after him, so do some cops and a helicopter, frightening him even more. Davis manages to talk George down before it gets worse but the ape is hit with a tranquilizer and passes out. So far, this is like an albino Might Joe Young.

 

The military group has moved into action, led by Burke, who is played by Joe Manganiello. They are heading into the forest to find one of the mutagen samples. This doesn't end well though as firstly they find some dead wolves and then most are taken out by the mutated wolf, nicknamed Ralph. The thing is huge! He doesn't go down with normal bullets, leading to Burke to call in the helicopter. The wolf has none of it though, leaping out of the trees in slow motion and making easy work of the chopper. Burke is then corner by Ralph, who ends up taking him down in one gulp. It felt strange seeing a face a new in a movie and him actually lasting only one scene.

 A government agent played by Jeffery Dean Morgan and named Harvey, arrives at the sanctuary to take George on a plane and keep him away from the public. Davis and Kate are also taken for questioning. Davis isn't too happy about having the ape trapped on a plane. Knowing how quick he is growing and how frightened how he will be once he wakes. Harvey comes back to the pair with some news. He's looked into their history and found out that Kate had been sacked by Energyne for stealing research. She's actually done some prison time and all of this leads to Davis realising that Kate could never help George.

Back at the 'baddies' headquarters and Claire has learnt about the problem with the wolf and for some crazy reason, believes it's a good idea to set a frequency in which to attract the wolf and the large alligator to Chicago. The alligator has only been seen through water so far but already has the nickname 'Lizzie'. George, although still outers, hears the frequency and starts to come around. He ends up in a full rage mode, taking down the plane and almost kills Harvey until Davis steps in. Davis hands out some parachutes and himself, Kate and Harvey land with a bit more safety.

Once the landing is secured, they notice that George is heading towards the city and Davis is still in the opinion that he cannot trust Kate at this time. She fights her corner and explains that her brother was stricken with cancer and she hoped that the mutagen would be a cure for him. Then she learnt that the company was using it as a weapon. When she tried to make off with it all, she was caught and obviously arrested. Davis then shares a story of his own. One of how he found George hiding underneath a poacher's truck. Harvey finally wakes and is thankful to Davis for saving him because George had knocked him out and Davis put the parachute on him and made sure he was ok. Harvey is onside and now wants to help the pair. They all meet with a military group that has been tracking George and Ralph as they head into the city. Harvey helps the pair steal a chopper and heading into the city to find out what is attracting the animals.

 

Once the three creatures have all made it to the centre, they start an all-out 'rampage', attacking each other, causing carnage and flattening the city. Knowing that they won't be able to bring these monsters down, the pair knows that they need to head to the headquarters of Energyne in order to find the antidote. Finally making their way to the lab, they are met by the evil siblings and held at gunpoint. Claire breaks the news that the antidote won't cure the animals but will take away their heightened aggression. Claire then ends up shooting Davis and taking Kate as a hostage as the pair try and get to their own chopper for an escape route. This is until the monsters have started scaling the building and George ends up smashing down the chopper in a scene that looked like King Kong. Brett does a runner and leaves his sister to attempt an escape. Davis has made it up top, bleeding but surviving, he saves Kate but Claire is also forcing them to help her out. Davis ends up distracting George for Kate to take the antidote vial out of Claire's bag and she punches the sister, shoving her into George's path who eats her without pause. Downstairs, Brett has made it to the front door, without a care for his sister, where he comes across Harvey. God knows where he has come from this time. He orders Brett to hand over the laptop he is carrying, giving him the reason that once he is free of the research, he can go. The coward leaps at the chance, only to be flattened by a falling piece of the building.

Back to the top and Kate and Davis have given George the antidote, waiting for it to take effect. The other two monsters have made it to the top and Davis, along with Kate, head off in the spare chopper. They manage to get a bit of air time and avoid the destruction for now. The tower finally collapses and the chopper hits the bottom. These two shouldn't get into an air vehicle again! George emerges from the rumble, now back to his friendly self and ready to join his friend Davis in taking down Lizzie and Ralph. There's also word that the military is ready to flatten the area in order to stop this, so Kate and Harvey's new plan is to put a stop to this. George battles the best he can, but it turns out that the wolf can fly and shoot quills, because why the hell not. Even Davis makes a joke about this. Davis makes the wolf fly towards him as a trap, knowing that Lizzie will pipe up and take him down. Biting his head off, it's now turning its attention to George.

 He's thrown and impaled against a fallen structure. Davis underarms a grenade belt at the alligator's neck and also uses the guns from the chopper but it barely causes a scratch. Davis is nearly dinner until George steps in. He leaps into the air with a pole and rams it straight into Lizzie's eye socket. This has finally killed the bitch. The movie ends with a saddened twist. George is clearly hurt by his wounds and as he holds Davis' hand, he dies. This is until we learn that he was messing around before giving Davis the middle finger. The heroes of the day head off into the sunset, wondering where George is now going to call home.
I am a bit biased for a creature feature, no matter the origin or plot at times. This would go for Kong and Godzilla movies that are in the pipeline. This movie was based around a video game but I have no idea what that entails and I never looked to play the game myself. This gave me a blank page to go into this movie and find out what it was about. I was too disappointed. The story was completely over the top but I'd noticed that from the trailer. I didn't expect the ape to turn bad for a period but once this happened, it was very predictable that he would turn back to good. That goes for the predictability of the ending too. Dwayne Johnson pretty much played the same guy as he always does. The witty brute who doesn't shy away from anything. There isn't much else to walk about other than the graphics. Nothing seemed outdated and terrible. The movie is what it is and being completely unrealistic only added to the enjoyment. I was constantly wondering what more could come from the creatures involved and the story itself. The easiest way to watch this would be never to take it to seriously and just enjoy it for a full on damage fest between some completely over-exaggerated animals and 'The Rock' in the middle of it.

If you can't fix it with duct tape, you aren't using enough duct tape! (Skyscraper 2018)

 

 

 

198.

Skyscraper

 

 

 

 

6.5/10

 

'The Rock' Dwayne Johnson is back in action in a movie, which name doesn't conceal any sort of location spoilers. A trailer which shows us everything that we need to know regarding this storyline, we are about to witness a guy climb a multi-story building in order to save his family. We are revolving around the life of a security expert, played by Johnson, named Will Sawyer and are about to see some far-fetched leaps and climbs by this man in an act of desperation. Alongside Neve Campbell, who I haven't seen personally since the Scream franchise, Roland Moller who is fast becoming a known villain and Chin Han, who has chucked his hat into some other movies, they complete the list of recognised faces for me. This has all the making of a Gerard Butler type movie, so let's see if 'rises' above the rest.

The film opens with a history of how Will lost his leg. In case I didn't mention, he's got a fake leg from the knee down. He is trying to break up a hostage situation, as a man is holding his family hostage. Will manages to talk him down from using his gun but he ends up blowing himself, his family and most of Will's team, up. Will is taken to hospital in a series condition, where he is treated by a nurse named Sarah, played by Neve. 10 years later and we are in Hong Kong, watching Will put on his leg and getting ready for a meeting. He is now married to Sarah, has twins and is on his way to meet the architect who created the building called The Pearl. He is also met by Ben, who was there are the hostage situation and suffered burns on his face and neck. Instantly a sign of a bad guy. He gives the rest of the family tickets to the zoo and takes Will to see Zhao. In the meeting, there is also another partner, named Mr Pierce and Will is handing a tablet that scans his face to allow him access to all of the systems. We then cut to see Ben in communication with someone regarding Will being in possession of tablet and is ordered to get him onto a boat. This is going to end well for someone. Will continues on the tour of the building and is taken to the top floor after seeing the ecosystem that runs the air levels. The top floor is completely covered in special mirrors which allows a sky-high view of the city as if you were walking on nothing but air.

 
 
 

 

 

 Will and Ben leave and are heading to a boat, of course, where a guy steals Will's bag and although Ben tries to stop him, in order to cover up that he is involved, the thief gets away. They get back to Ben apartment to cool down and Will reveals that he had the tablet inside his jacket all along and it was never taken. We can instantly see Ben's face change and he calls his boss for a backup plan.

Back at the Pearl, where Will's new apartment is situated, we see a gang of criminals begin a break in through a basement wall. Sarah and the kids have returned early from the zoo because one of the kids had gotten sick. On the way back to their room, they actually bump into two of the criminals, which Sarah is shocked about, knowing that they should be the only ones there. They are disguised as staff members, but Sarah still doesn't like the look of it. She closes the door and we see the criminals discuss the fact that the family wasn't meant to be home, before meeting up with the rest of the gang. Sarah also noticed a name on the boxes they were carrying. The guys start to spread a powder across the floor, a powder which is ignited by water. The leader, played by Roland and named Kores Botha, uses a flare to start the sprinklers off and boom, we have a blaze. When Will starts to head home, Ben pulls a gun on him, wanting the tablet. This leads to a pretty decent, if not brief, fight scene with Ben taking Will's leg and Will hoping around but still holding his own. Ben ends up accidentally shooting himself in the chest and on his deathbed, he tells Will that his family was never meant to be there and all the villains wanted was the tablet. He looks out of the window and sees the fire from across the skyline.

 

 

 

 As he tries to leave, other thugs show up, forcing him down the fire escape and into the ally, where a female henchwoman named Xia is waiting. She gets the better of an already drained Will and takes the tablet, scanning his face first and then leaving the other men to end the job. The police show up, giving Will the chance to leave but also Xia, who heads off in a car. Will makes it out onto the streets, where he sees his own face on a giant monitor. He is being hunted in connection with the fire in The Pearl. He once again manages to escape, making his way to a massive crane next-door and we can all guess what is coming next.

Back inside the building, Sarah is trying to keep the smoke outside of the room and as if things weren't bad enough, one of the twins Henry has asthma. Elsewhere, Xia has made it to the control centre and her men have killed the technicians, whilst her hacker gets to work. Will has already begun the climb on the crane and is being set after by some guards and policemen.

 

 

 He manages to lock the top door and then use the crane, hooking it to an open window. Great shot. Almost too great. He runs to the end of the crane, leaping off and only just making it to the window, with applause from every viewer below. Inspector Wu and other officials realise that he is heading inside for his family. Zhao is still in his office up top and once he realises what is happening, leaves with his bodyguard for the chopper but on arrival, the bodyguard realises that it isn't their normal pilot. Botha and his gang, along with Pierce the silently nervous bad guy, arrive to try and escape on the helicopter, giving us a little gunfight. They want a flash drive that Zhao is carrying but before they can retrieve it, Zhao heads back to lock himself in his office.

Sarah has decided its no longer safe to stay in the room and heads out to find a safer place.

 

 

 

 

 Pierce finds them on their travels and tries to take them before Sarah stabs him with some scissors. She sends the kids off across a bridge and when she breaks free, she tries to follow them before a pillar comes down and crashes through the bridge. Pierce closes in but enter Will. Being the hero that he was always going to be in this movie, he pushes Pierce into the fire, as we watch one of the twins make it to an artificial waterfall for safety. Will uses a plank to get Sarah and one of the kids across the broken bridge and of course, it looks like it will fall but Will is there with his brute force, to hold it steady. Will sends the family down in an elevator, cutting its wires so that it travels faster and Sarah pulls the break at the right time in order to save themselves. It was another cliché moment as she struggled to reach the level first of all. As for the other kid, Georgia, she is still on the run after getting to the waterfall. Two gunmen have found her and although Will manages to get to her and have a fight, she is still taken and used as a hostage to get Will to find a way into Zhao's office.

 

 

 

Will heads out to override the security systems but in doing this, must scale the side of the building. He ties a rope around himself, covers his feet in duct tape and makes his way behind some fans to turn the systems off. This is a great advert for duct tape, seriously. Watch this scene and tell me how this would work in real life. As for the fans he has to jump through, I've been hit by a parked car so god knows how he did that. Will makes his way back but the rope slips and attaches itself to his fake leg. He flips around, grabs his leg and pulls himself back through the window in which he started. Zhao tries to close the doors back up but Will makes it in and takes him down whilst a gun is pointed at him. He forces Zhao to explain what this is about.

Back below, Sarah has made it to Inspector Wu and is updated on Botha's history. Wu's partner still suspects Will is up to something and that even Sarah would be in on it. This is spun on its head as Sarah helps the investigation but telling them that she noticed all the men wearing parachutes. They never planned on staying around long. Zhao has given his explanation. He had worked with Botha before and refused to pay him. With this Botha promised he would never let him finish the Pearl, so was paid. This then leads to the villains finding out that Zhao had files on all of the criminal's teams that Botha had been involved with and this is the reason why he wants that flash drive. Will pleads with his new boss to help him because they have his daughter. They decide to meet with everyone on the roof. This plan goes to shit as Zhao is only thinking of himself. He takes a gun and the flash drive and tries to make an exit before a deal to get Georgia back can even happen. He orders Botha to give him a parachute and Botha has one of his men do so. In another turn of events, Zhao comes back onside, fighting the villains at the side of Will before leading them into the room of mirrors, confusing them as Will goes after his daughter and at the same time, killing most of the criminals. The mirrors are creating more than one target obviously and now a grenade has gone off and blown a hole in the floor. Will finally has Botha cornered but the guy has Georgia and a grenade, sending us back to the same situation to which the movie started. He is ordered to get the flash drive for him but Will reveals one thing, Botha is talking to a mirror and Will was behind him all along. Will boots him through the hole and saves his daughter and Zhao, as the three make their way down to safety.

Back to Sarah and they have located the landing area if the criminals had taken flight. They come across Xi, who nearly chokes out Sarah, but is defeated with a boot to the face. Sarah takes the tablet and resets all of The Pearl's systems in order to fight the fire. A helicopter arrives to get Will, Georgia and Zhao and on questioned regarding what Zhao will do next, he simply answers, 'rebuild'. The family reunites, as the crowd cheers them on. Wu meets Will, impressed with his antics and his family, to which Will agrees as the four walk off to go home. Wait. Where is home now?

The only way to watch this movie is to not take it in any sort of seriousness. You can see from the trailer that this was going to be an action movie that would push the boundaries of humour at times and this was seen in more than one occasion when it came to the storyline. That's not saying that it was terrible. It was actually quite enjoyable when you sat and just wanted some escapism. It was one of the weakest movies that Dwayne Johnson has done for a while, so we will forgive that but at times, it seemed like this guy was superhuman, not some ordinary bloke trying to help his family. Visually, the movie was great, it looked great and the fight scenes were non-stop at times with some great camera angles to continue the flow and make it feel like the audience was being chucked about. The story, if looking at it deeply is very very cliché. Overall, people and studios need to realise that just having a visually good-looking movie doesn't work anymore if the writing isn't there for the rest of the movie.

He wants us! (Slender Man 2018)

197.

Slender Man

 

 4/10

 

 

Bringing it back to horror, we are about to step into the world of the Slender Man. Over the years, mainly thanks to social media, I have seen a lot of pictures of this character and needy comments asking about a movie. People have finally had their prayers answered and have gotten a film adaptation of this internet phenomenon, which has actually claimed the lives of real people, who have become obsessed with this legend of ghost stories and photo-shop images. Not much promotion was put towards this movie due to the bad press it brings but lets step into the world and find out if it is anything near terrifying.

The movie begins, as many over my years on Earth have done, with a group of best friends in high school discussing their night and approaching a group of lads and asking the same. The lads are in for something secret though. One of the girls, Wren, who is instantly being seen as one of our darker characters, picks Hallie up, who is seen as our main leading lady. They head over to Katie's and along with Chloe, they hang out in their basement. Katie's dad is passed out pissed up on the couch. The girls discuss that the lads are trying to summon the Slender Man, a monster that is known to abduct children after they watch his video online. They must listen of the bells, which seem an integral part. They follow the rules and nothing happens. Straight away anyway. We are going to be weaned in, just as we are. Whilst they are summoning, we are given the history though, just in case anyone in the audience isn't aware.

A week passes and everyone is on a school trip at a cemetery. Bit of a random place to go. Katie is suddenly spooked by something in the tree line and heads towards it, disappearing to the group and the whole class is left there for hours whilst the police give a search. Hallie is back home with her sister Lizzie and they both here thumping and banging coming from downstairs. They get spooked and Hallie heads down to check it out. The audience is instantly waiting for a jump scare. Out pops Katie's drunken dad, who tries to attack her claiming that she got Katie into some occult business, before the police arrive and arrest him. The remaining girls head to Katie's to investigate, whilst Wren distracts her father, the other two head into her bedroom and take her laptop. They find videos on there of others who have encountered the Slender Man and the girls carry on to read messages from a chat with someone called 'AleeyCat93'. She had been messaging, finding out how to deal with the Slender Man. Hallie picks up the conversation, asking how to get Katie back. She is told that they would all need to give up something that is near and dear to them.

The girls head to the woods to give up some belongings and Wren has been getting some info on the situation, telling the girls that they all need to put blindfolds on and leave them on no matter what. As we expect, someone takes one off and it's Chloe. She runs into the woods until she comes face to face with the Slender Man and when the girls find her, she seems way to calm, claiming that she had lost a shoe. Soon after, Chloe stops heading into school when she sees a video on her phone of someone going through her own home, it leads all the way to her bedroom. Slender Man appears in her room and starts to choke her.

 We look into the mirror though and it appears as if she is choking herself. Wren and Hallie head over to Chloe's later, to make sure she is ok, only to look through the window and a little jump scare shows us that Chloe looks possessed, her eyes are sunken and she has clearly gone mad.

Two girls left without contact now but it's soon to be Wren's turn. She heads to the library to look for more help and when the lights go out, she is left with the light on her phone and a maze of books as Slender Man tracks her down. Touching her, she loses her face, causing her to run aimlessly until she bumps into an employee and everything goes back to normal. The next day, Hallie is approached by one of the lads, asking if she wants to hang out. She thinks she sees the Slender Man in the background bushes. Wren and Hallie then have an argument about the fact she is putting a boy over the Slender Man issue and when Hallie heads over to Tom's she is freaked out when she see nightmarish images. The lads never watched the video and she opens up to him about it all. Back at her house, Lizzie has a panic attack, shouting about the fact that 'he has no face'. Hallie knows that she has seen Slender Man too and after looking on Lizzie's laptop, we see that Wren has taken her into the woods to make contact.

Hallie heads straight over to Wren's to find all information about this stuff on her walls, one about a girl who was sent insane named Allison Riley, AleeyCat93. Wren is about to jump out of her window but is pulled back inside. She is guilty about what happened to Hallie's sister Lizzie. Lizzie came to her with interest of Slender Man and that he doesn't want their stuff, he actually wants them. He instantly pulls Wren out of the window with his tentacles. Hallie instantly heads into the woods to confront this 'thing'. When she sees the creature, she starts to back out and run for it. The creature runs around her, using its tentacles like a spider and finally grabbing her, dragging her in as it turns into a tree and fusing her within its body. Hallie is gone, along with her friends and Lizzie wakes up in hospital, reflecting on what has happened to her sister. The final images of Hallie are completely and utter weird, almost experimental images, but you'll just have to watch that bit.

 

Overall, this movie could be considered the Bland Man. There wasn't too much to get excited about or scared for that fact. If we start with the horror factor, this was pretty much at a minimum. If you knew this legend before, maybe it would be a little creepier for yourself but coming into this with a blank pallet, it didn't grip me. There could have been a few jump scares but only if they didn't lead up with such predictable context beforehand. The cast contained 100% newbies to me and they too didn't really grip me with each character, some even lead to frustration. They sound was probably one of the redeeming features for a horror but once again, got worn out when it was used every time in the same context. Trees cracking and clicking as we got to see the Slender Man just gave this feeling of repetition and a movie that I had seen somewhere else before. We knew something was going down every time we had a problem with the electricity. That goes for the rest of the storyline though. A group of friends, picked off one by one, a failed love interest scene and a younger sibling getting tied up in the madness. This movie failed on a number of levels and was doomed from the start with certain controversies. I don't think I'll be owning this one within my favourite genre. The good parts of this are very slender.