Rampage

**Rampage** is a 2018 film starring Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris, Malin Åkerman, Jake Lacy, Joe Manganiello, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Marley Shelton, directed by Brad Peyton, written by Ryan Engle, Carlton Cuse, Ryan J. Condal and Adam Sztykiel and produced by Beau Flynn, Hiram Garcia, Peyton and John Rickard.

The film was a financial failure as it generated a loss of $25 million.

## Plot

Athena-1, a space station owned by gene manipulation company Energyne, is destroyed after a laboratory rat mutates and wreaks havoc. Dr. Kerry Atkins, the lone surviving crew member, is ordered by CEO Claire Wyden to retrieve research canisters containing a pathogen. Atkins is able to flee in the escape pod when the station implodes, but due to damage from the rat it disintegrates upon re-entry, killing her. The falling pieces leave a trail of debris across the United States, including the Everglades in Florida, where one of the canisters is swallowed by an American crocodile, and the other lands in a forest in Wyoming, where a gray wolf is exposed to the pathogen.

Primatologist Davis Okoye, a former US Army Special Forces soldier and member of an anti-poaching unit, works at the San Diego Wildlife Sanctuary. He has befriended a rare albino western lowland gorilla named George, having saved him from the poachers who killed his mother, and communicates with George using sign language and hand gestures. At night, one of the canisters crash-lands in George's habitat, and George is exposed to the pathogen.

George grows considerably larger and more aggressive over time. Davis is contacted by Dr. Kate Caldwell, a genetic engineer, who explains that the pathogen was developed by Energyne to rewrite genes on a massive scale. She had hoped to advance CRISPR research as a potential cure for diseases but discovered Energyne's plans to use it as a biological weapon. The company fired her and got her sent to prison for attempting to expose them. George escapes from captivity and goes on a rampage at the preserve. Davis calms him down, but George is captured by a government team led by Agent Harvey Russell and put on an airplane. Meanwhile, Claire and her brother, Brett, send a squad of mercenaries to capture the mutated wolf, Ralph, but they are all killed.

Claire, hoping to capture Ralph and use George to kill Kate so they can cover up their plans, uses a massive transmitter atop the Willis Tower to lure all three of the animals—who have been engineered to respond aggressively to a certain radio frequency—to Chicago. George reacts violently to the sound and causes the plane to crash, though Davis, Kate, and Russell parachute to safety. George, who also survives the crash, joins Ralph as they make their way to Chicago. Davis and Kate are aided by Russell in stealing a military helicopter to go to Chicago themselves.

By the time they arrive, George and Ralph are tearing through the city, with the military struggling to contain the two. The situation worsens when the mutated crocodile, Lizzie, arrives and joins George and Ralph. Davis and Kate make a plan to steal a counter-serum, hoping that they can turn the mutated animals back to normal. They are able to reach Energyne headquarters at the Willis Tower and take several vials of the serum, but they are caught by Claire and Brett. Claire reveals that the serum only eliminates the animals' enhanced aggressiveness rather than revert them to their normal sizes, meaning that the other resulting effects and mutations caused by the pathogen are completely irreversible. Claire shoots Davis, but he survives. When George climbs up to the top of the tower, Claire orders Davis to distract him while she attempts to escape with Kate held hostage at gunpoint. Kate slips a vial into Claire's handbag and pushes her towards George, who swallows Claire alive along with the serum, killing her and eventually resulting in George returning to his normal personality. Below, Russell takes incriminating evidence from Brett and lets him escape, albeit into the path of falling debris which crushes Brett to death. As the tower topples from damage, Davis and Kate survive by hovering in a damaged helicopter amidst the shower of debris, crash landing on Federal Plaza.

With George now returned to his normal personality, Davis stays in the city to help him defeat the other two monsters, while Kate and Russell rush to prevent the military from deploying a MOAB against the creatures. George fights Ralph and Davis tricks the wolf into flying into Lizzie's jaws, which decapitates him. Lizzie chases Davis through the city wreckage, but George intervenes in time for Davis to incapacitate the crocodile with grenades. As Lizzie recovers, she overpowers George, who is then heavily wounded by being impaled with rebar, but survives. Davis distracts Lizzie using a fallen Apache helicopter, but is nearly killed himself before George stabs Lizzie's brain by skewering through her head with the same rebar, killing her. With the threat neutralized, the airstrike is aborted. In the aftermath, George and Davis, joined by Kate and Russell, help clear the city of debris and evacuate civilians.