Rampage is The Rock’s $428 million kaiju movie, and while it has a lot of fans, it sadly continued a disappointing trend that began 19 years ago. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has appeared in all kinds of major franchises, with him having roles in projects like Black Adam, Jungle Cruise, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, and more. However, there is one type of franchise that The Rock has continuously tried to break into for nearly two decades now, but Rampage’s critical failure proves that he has still not successfully done so.
Rampage was one of the biggest movies of 2018, with the kaiju action movie being made even more exciting by having Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in the leading role. The movie stars The Rock as a paleontologist who is tasked with taking down giant mutated versions of a gorilla, a wolf, and a lizard after a genetics experiment goes awry. Many viewers of the $428 million box office hit aren’t aware that Rampage is actually a movie based on a classic video game, with this detail making it an interesting footnote in a continuing trend from The Rock’s career.
Rampage Was The Rock’s Second “Rotten” Video Game Adaptation
After Doom (2005)
Despite Rampage being a box office success, having made $428 million on a budget of around $140 million, the movie was a critical failure. Rampage received mixed to negative reviews across the board, with it standing at 51% on Rotten Tomatoes as of the writing of this article. This was disappointing for many of the fans of the original Rampage video game, as the franchise is so niche that another shot at adapting the video game was unlikely. However, Rampage is actually The Rock’s second video game adaptation with a bad Rotten Tomatoes rating.
13 years before the release of Rampage, The Rock starred in another live-action video game movie, with this being 2005’s Doom. Despite the action film being part of a much bigger franchise than Rampage, it actually fared a lot worse than its successor. Doom only has 18% on Rotten Tomatoes, but this isn’t the only way that it failed. On a budget of $70 million, Doom only made $58.7 million, meaning that it was a huge box office failure. Thus, Doom and Rampage prove that The Rock can’t seem to make a good video game adaptation.
Rampage Was Still Much Better Than Doom
Critically & Commercially
Despite both films getting Rotten scores on Rotten Tomatoes, Rampage is still much better than Doom. While Rampage does have its problems, with things like the story and characters being bland, it managed to be a successful action movie. The giant kaiju fights all work incredibly well, with it being some of the best American kaiju action outside of Legendary’s MonsterVerse. On top of that, Rampage has some fantastic CGI, with it really bringing the three monsters from the video game to life.
Meanwhile, there are very few redeeming qualities about the 2005 Doom movie. Outside of Doom’s surprisingly star-studded cast, which features The Rock, Karl Urban, Rosamund Pike, and others, pretty much every aspect of Doom was received negatively. The dialogue and story are bland and derivative, and the action feels lackluster in comparison to the video games. Doom is closer to its video game counterpart than Rampage movies, but when judging them as films, Rampage is far superior.
The Rock Deserves To Star In A Good Video Game Adaptation
Even After The Two Failed Films
Although he has been in two failed video game movies, The Rock still deserves to star in a good video game adaptation. The video game movie curse was a longstanding pattern that existed while The Rock was making his movies, with the video game movie curse not being broken until the release of projects like Detective Pikachu and Sonic the Hedgehog in 2019 and 2020. Doom was a victim of this curse, with the film being afraid to lean into the elements of what made the source material great.
Meanwhile, Rampage was hardly a video game movie, with the film not really acknowledging its roots at all. Instead, the film simply took the premise of the game and turned it into a film, leaving fans of the games wanting more. There are still plenty of video game adaptations that The Rock could star in, whether he is in live-action or voice acting, and many of these could finally be the proper video game movie that Doom and Rampage weren’t.