BEFORE: OK, here's how October's going to play out, ideally. I've got 20 films set up, which works out great because once I take 2 days off to work at NY Comic-Con, and 8 days off for a vacation, that leaves me with just 21 days. Jeez, it's almost like I'm getting good at planning this stuff. However, this October's going to be a little different, because I'm working on a Perfect Year for linking, and I wasn't able to come up with a 20-film chain that's completely horror-based. There was a HUGE gap between two smaller chains, and the only way I could find to bridge that gap was to dip into the realm of animation, which actually seems fine because two of the animated films on my list were sort of Halloween-based anyway, but for kids, obviously. But I had to also include a couple straight, not-horror-at-all animated films just to link back to the horror theme, and also I needed to drop in one film about golf. Go figure.
So all those classic Mummy-based films I recorded off TCM, well, they're going to have to wait. Other random one-off horror films that don't connect to anything else, like "Swamp Thing" and "Salem's Lot", they're going to have to wait, too. I'm not throwing away my shot at a Perfect Year just to clear some deadwood off the list. If next year is all random horror films, so be it, but this chain is going to link from New Year's to Christmas, even if I have to go off-topic. So here come 20 films that are MOSTLY horror, only there are 4 films that may not belong here. BUT, since I watched films like "A Quiet Place" and "Alien: Covenant" this year outside of October (plus a slasher film spoof, "Tucker and Dale vs. Evil", and a couple films about serial killers..), maybe everything can balance out somehow at the year end wrap-up.
Dwayne Johnson carries over from "San Andreas", and so do three other actors.
THE PLOT: When three different animals become infected with a dangerous pathogen, a primatologist and a geneticist team up to stop them from destroying Chicago.
AFTER: Some of you out there may recognize the source material on this one - a giant ape makes his way to the big city, climbs up on top of a skyscraper and starts destroying aircraft. Sound familiar? Of course, I'm talking about the famous arcade game from the 1980's, also called "Rampage". Why, what were YOU thinking about? And no, it's not the one where Mario has to climb up the ladders and dodge barrels, that's "Donkey Kong" - which was supposed to be called "Monkey Kong", I don't care how they try to spin it after the fact, let's just all agree that one of the most famous games ever got its name because of a typographical error made by a Japanese person, OK? "Monkey Kong" is a stupid name, but "Donkey Kong" is accidentally brilliant.
"Rampage" was a game where you played as one of three monsters, climbed up the sides of buildings in a city-scape and started smashing windows in the building until it collapsed. Then you had to jump off the building before it fell, or your character would take damage. It was totally an original idea, not based on any movie whatsoever, unless you count "King Kong", "Godzilla" and every werewolf film ever made. But it scratched that little itch I mentioned yesterday, the little part inside us that wants to see skyscrapers fall down, provided we're not inside them, or standing underneath. If you're keeping score, that's THREE films with Dwayne Johnson THIS WEEK where buildings getting knocked down or catching on fire is central to the plot. See what I mean about that being a trend?
But this is the first film during my "Rock Around the Clock" week of programming where they teamed him up with somebody BIGGER than himself. I mean, he shares a good deal of screen time with Naomie Harris, and she's fairly short (I think contractually his screen romances or comedy partners can't be taller than 5 1/2 feet tall.) Dwayne Johnson is 6 feet and 5 inches tall, but everybody ends up looking small standing next to a giant gorilla. And if you didn't buy him as a chef or a lifeguard, how about as a primate specialist at the San Diego "Wildlife Sanctuary"? Of course, he's got special skills, could be ex-military as he apparently remembers how to fly a helicopter, but mostly his character deals with apes, especially George, a large silverback that can speak in sign language.
The big corporate bad here is the Energyne Corporation, which has been carrying on secret genetic manipulation experiments in space, and once they've used CRISPR to crack the code and accidentally create a mutated Rodent of Unusual Size that's fond of eating the human space station crew, the lone crew member tries to eject with the mutating pathogen, only her pod breaks up during re-entry and the segments with the pathogen land in three spots across the country. You'd think that the space debris would burn up during re-entry, or perhaps all land in the same spot, but you'd be greatly mistaken there. The plot dictates that the pieces with the mutating agent need to land right in the middle of the San Diego Zoo's gorilla cage, and in two other specific places to create the monsters needed for the film to match the video game.
Now, in the video-game, I remember that when the monsters took too much damage, they turned into tiny humans - so they must have started as people before mutating into monsters, right? Only here in the film, it's animals that get turned into mutated animals. Even though this isn't true to the game, I feel that I have to allow this, because it's a quicker and (slightly) more logical way of getting to the same place. Look, this has been a very weird year already for movies, there's no question about that, and things are liable to get super-ultra-weird during October. Sometimes a film goes so far in a crazy direction that it kind of becomes impossible to criticize, and I think that's what we're dealing with here. Completely impossible, bonkers stuff, so what am I going to do, sit here and just say, "None of this could really happen!" Of course not, but as long we're playing around in a wild sandbox, let's not just get partially crazy, we might as well go full-on crazy nuts.
As long as we're playing around in the gene pool, why not give wild animals the growth rate of a blue whale, the speed of a cheetah, and the regenerative abilities of an African mouse, all while ramping up their aggressive tendencies. What could POSSIBLY go wrong in this scenario? But as long as I'm searching desperately for a NITPICK POINT, how come the exposure to the mutagen just turns George into a larger, more aggressive gorilla, when exposure to the same drug somehow gives the giant wolf the ability to shoot quills from its tail and wing-flaps to let it glide like a flying squirrel?
See, I wish I could just turn off my mind, relax and float downstream, but I just can't. Still, I think I came close today, and that's saying something. So far I've learned that the Rock hates bullies, loves animals and always tries to rescue people in need (unless his own daughter is in trouble...) plus if he gives you two options over how things are going to go down, always take option "A", it will just be easier for you in the long run.
Two more Dwayne Johnson films to go, then I'm breaking for NY Comic-Con.
Also starring Naomie Harris (last heard in "Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle"), Jeffrey Dean Morgan (last seen in "P.S. I Love You"), Malin Akerman (last seen in "27 Dresses"), Jake Lacy (last seen in "Carol"), Joe Manganiello (last seen in "Pee-Wee's Big Holiday"), P.J. Byrne (last seen in "The Clapper"), Marley Shelton (last seen in "The Bachelor"), Demetrius Grosse (last seen in "13 Hours"), Jack Quaid (last heard in "Smallfoot"), Breanne Hill (also carrying over from "San Andreas"), Matt Gerald (ditto), Will Yun Lee (ditto), Jason Liles,
RATING: 6 out of 10 stealth bombers (why?)
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