Tag: Brad Peyton

Cinema Dispatch: Rampage

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

RAMPAGECD0

Rampage and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros Pictures

Directed by Brad Peyton

Does anyone remember that Tomb Raider movie that came out?  Yeah, it was like a month ago but I kind of just forgot all about it already, though I guess my blissful ignorance won’t last for long considering that movie made a HUGE amount of money overseas which will inevitably lead to a sequel, but until then it looks like we’ve got another crack at the genre with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s second attempt at a video game adaptation.  Despite being buff enough to topple buildings, he is not the one RAMPAGING in this movie as it’s instead an adaptation of the classic arcade game where three giant monsters (who are TOTALLY not Godzilla, King Kong, and The Wolf Man) destroy buildings and… well that’s pretty much it.  Seems like a decent enough premise to throw a bunch of money at to make CGI mayhem, but can they manage to make this more than another monotonous action blockbuster starring the world’s most jacked teddy bear?  Let’s find out!!

The movie begins with a mission in space going HORRIFICALLY wrong (seriously, it’s about as terrifying as the end of Life) which leads to a bunch of canisters holding some sort of RAMPAGE GAS landing at various places across the US.  One lands on top of an alligator, another crashes into a wolf pack, and the last one craters into an animal sanctuary which is subsequently found by George; an albino gorilla who can speak sign language and is total bros with Davis Okoye (Dwayne Johnson).  Davis JUST SO HAPPENS to not only be a primate expert working at the sanctuary, but he ALSO used to hunt down poachers and even saved George from a terrible fate which led to them being buddies ever since!  If only it wasn’t for that DAMNED Science Gas made by some company led up by brothers Claire and Brett (Malin Åkerman and Jake Lacy), we could have had a movie about these two hanging out, but NO!  Instead, the Science Gas makes George grow SUPER BIG (even bigger than The Rock!!) and gives him a serious mean streak on top of that which makes it hard for even Davis’s glistening bulging muscles to contain which forces the some secret agency within the US government led by Agent Russell (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) to capture the ape and take him to Washington for experiments before putting it to sleep.  Things don’t go as planned however as Claire and Brett have even MORE sinister plots for George as well as the two other creatures roaming the countryside, and if they succeed it could spell doom for millions of people!  Will Davis along with A SCIENTISTTM (Naomie Harris) find some way to save his gorilla buddy before Claire and Brett destroy whatever is left of George and turning him into a TRUE monster?  What untold destruction will the monsters unleash upon the city, and will it look totally bad ass?  Why didn’t they just make this an Ultraman movie so that they could make The Rock into a giant!?  I’d pay to see him the size of a skyscraper doing Rock Bottoms on monsters!!

RAMPAGECD1
HE LOOKS SO TINY NOW!  HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE!?

Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Rampage” →

Cinema Dispatch: Incarnate

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 4 Comments

incarnatecd0

Incarnate and all the images you see in this review are owned by Blumhouse Tilt, High Top Releasing, and Universal Pictures

Directed by Brad Peyton

I go to see a lot of movies, and I don’t think I saw a single trailer for this at any of them; not even other horror films or Blumhouse productions.  That seems pretty strange though considering they’ve got a well-known actor in here with Aaron Eckhart who may not be quite A list, but should be enough to sell a movie like this, and yet it seems to have slipped completely under the radar.  That’s usually a bad sign, but it’s not always the case as films like last year’s We Are Your Friends was a movie I never heard of until I went to the theater to see it, and that turned out to be pretty solid; especially compared to other Zac Effron outings like Dirty Grandpa and Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates.  Maybe the same is true for this little horror flick.  I mean… it’s possible… right?  Either way, let’s find out!!

The movie begins as most demon possession movies do with a young child getting his soul hijacked from some horrifying hell spawn with the victim here being Cameron (David Mazouz) who seems to catch it from this homeless woman as the demons here apparently jump from host to host.  Naturally, the Vatican is all over this and sends out one of their representatives (Catalina Sandino Moreno) to keep an eye on things, but it soon becomes clear that conventional methods are gonna take care of it this time.  Instead, she calls upon… Dr. Seth Ember (Aaron Eckhart)!  Who is he?  Well he’s some guy who looks to have watched Inception a few too many times and has come up with a new exorcism technique where he goes into the mind of those possessed and convince their subconscious or whatever to reject the monster that is feeding off of their soul.  Of course, Dr. Ember isn’t some bright eyed idealist who’s doing this for the good of mankind!  He has a DARK PAST full of TRAGEDY and WOE, and the techniques he’s developed were all in service of killing ONE DEMON SPECIFICALLY who has something to do with said tragic past.  Of course, it JUST SO HAPPENS (or maybe not?) that the kid is being possessed by that ONE SPECIFIC DEMON, so Dr. Ember begrudgingly takes the case along with his two hipster tech brats Riley and Oliver (Emily Jackson and Keir O’Donnell).  Will Dr. Ember finally gets the vengeance that has eluded him all these years?  Will he be able to save Cameron in the process, or will Ember see him as expendable in the pursuit of a greater goal?  What… exactly did I just sit though?

incarnatecd1
“Maybe I will do that I, Frankenstein sequel after all.  It wasn’t THAT bad, was it?”

Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Incarnate” →

Cinema Dispatch: San Andreas

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 1 Comment

SA0

San Andreas and all the images you see below are owned by Warner Bros.

Directed by Brad Peyton

The movie is primarily about Ray (Dwayne Johnson) who is a Fire Rescue helicopter pilot who’s about to have one mother fucker of a day when the entire San Andreas fault decides to drop the entire California coast into the Pacific Ocean.  Throughout this catastrophic event, Ray does everything in his power to rescue his family from the chaos surrounding them, as well as others who are trying to survive or do their part in preventing further lives from being lost.   Along with Ray’s badass adventures with his soon to be ex-wife Emma (Carla Gugino), we follow his daughter Blake (Alexandra Daddario) who’s trying to survive with a couple of Brits she found along the way, and we also get to see Professor Lawrence (Paul Giamatti) who’s trying to get the word out that earthquakes are happening while the earthquakes are happening.  As far as the science goes, there isn’t really a reason WHY this is happening, other than what this poster has to say on it.

And we did SUCH a good job preparing for it!
And we did SUCH a good job preparing for it!

Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: San Andreas” →