Rampage 2018

Every film casting Dwayne Johnson has been a fairly unoriginal conservative family-friendly popcorn piece to keep audiences dully entertained while corporations rob them. "Rampage" is no exception. This film casts The Rock as the BFF of a lightskin gorilla that grows too big for its britches til the government decides to kill it. There's an intentionally hokey ending where King Kong isn't killed but joyously accepted as a Nazi "comrade" but the film doesn't trick us. Its pro-Trump anarcho-capitalism that serves to only send America into amoral servitude to enterprising pro-state corporate masters in Hollywood. Fucking terrible film. And thankfully the internet shit on it. Probably because the hypnosis of loving Obama has worn off and the cynical truthism is reactionary at this point in our deep dark night within the confusingly deceptive implosion of Western world bipartisan monopoly.

The film has its mild Romantic moments and it criticizes the government and corporate abuses with baby taps. Its your expected pandering to Leftism from insincere capitalists. But in subverting the crassness you get in other rightwing media, its stupidity hits even harder as bland false advertisement. This is truly a post-Obama, post-Trump American work but for all the wrong reasons. An unintentional documentary of Late Capitalism slave work.

For the record, there are films starring The Rock that I have enjoyed but they were random flukes handled by reasonably responsible directors: the Donnie Darko companion piece "Southland Tales", "Pain & Gain" and, I dunno, maybe a few parts of "GI Joe 2". He seems like a well-meaning meathead jock with a minor artistic sensitivity simply from being an oppressed minority. He's thoroughly indoctrinated Deep South dixiecrat neoliberal who has good ideas but only seems to work in the most regressive circles of media. I guess he's a Libertarian who hasn't embraced socialism yet. Johnson might win a popular election with that status but he won't make a good leader because he seems insulated by manipulative and greedy sycophants... in his own family it seems.

If The Rock made films that were more open-minded, less child-proofed and a lot more subtle, he would have work that equals his immense popularity and natural charisma. He does seem to be getting better and this way more watchable than Hercules or The Tooth Fairy. But, I'm always left disappointed by his starring vehicles. Maybe he is best as a supporting actor, co-billed or even as an antagonist. Something without his too broad "working class" hero cliches. But he is popular among all demographics because there is a democratic way in which he lowers himself.

This film casts man and ape as close relatives. It turns queasy following the heroic quest of 3 ethnic characters VS greedy white people, drawing what kind of a parallel? The races as a hierarchy of apes instead of subspecies of human. Its very racist but in the most covert and smiling way. There's no chance the actors know they are doing it unless the pay was greater than their integrity. But you have to know your history of racism in film, media and recorded history. A film made by white people with a black man telling whites that an ape is his family more than other people is offensive. Ok, maybe I can half-buy it as a tale of African descents protecting the animal kingdom from the disastrous effects of white colonialism. But that insincere reading is so obscured in CGI, bad dialogue, clumsy & timid racial commentary and a lot of pointlessness.

If there's anything redeeming in this movie it was too subtle for me. I doubt that in a video game turned film called "Rampage" that is a combination of like 10 equally bad films.