Review by C.J. Bunce
King Kong. Mighty Joe Young. George of the Jungle. And all the derivative films made since. Add to that mega-sized monster movies like Godzilla and you’ll find their latest incarnation in this month’s release of Rampage. The evolution of the technology of putting a giant ape on film is all about CGI and motion capture now, and you’ll learn all about it in the new book The Art and Making of Rampage, by Ellen Wolff.
In Rampage, a genetic experiment goes wrong, unleashing three giant, mutant predators. Dwayne Johnson stars as a primatologist whose once-gentle friend George, a highly intelligent silverback gorilla, is exposed to the experiment. Johnson’s character joins with a geneticist played by the James Bond films’ Naomie Harris to find an antidote to try to save both George and the world from the giant mutants.
From its roots in the 1980s Midway arcade game (Warner Bros. owns the Midway game titles) to the corresponding giant-sized personality of the film’s star, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Rampage is all about bigger and better. The recurring theme is “go big, or go BIGGER, or go home.” Readers of The Art and Making of Rampage, a full-color hardcover volume, will get the entire behind-the-scenes tour. From concept to screen readers will follow the “band getting back together” as Johnson reunites for the third time with director Brad Peyton and producers Beau Flynn and Hiram Garcia, who he worked with on Journey 2: The Mysterious Island and San Andreas. With bits of Jurassic Park, Project X, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and Pacific Rim, Rampage is full of action sequences, all detailed in the book.
