REVIEW: Rampage: Capital Punishment (2014)

Runtime: 93 Mins
Rated: R
What To Expect: While not as good as the original, Rampage 2 still has some serious balls

I’ll tell you one thing, Uwe Boll has some balls.  He shoots movies that others wouldn’t touch with a barge pole.  Assault On Wall Street and the original Rampage are two good examples.  You also gotta respect a man that beats shit out of his (let’s face it, know-nothing) detractors in the boxing ring.  Not all of his movies are shit.  Rampage 2 is exploitation writ large, for sure, but it’s definitely worth your time.

In the original movie, the nut, Bill Williamson (Brendan Fletcher), went on a killing spree using a custom armor suit eventually killing 100.  This time, mass media are on the receiving end of the nut’s ire.  Williamson emerges from hiding with automatic weapons, custom armor suit, C4 explosives and a DVD that he has recorded.  Williamson first heads on down to the local broadcasting suite and commits mass murder of employees he deems to be selling out, lying to the people.  The DVD contains a message where Williamson shits on Obama, the U.S. Government, billionaires and bankers.  Williamson demands the mass murder of them all and calls for a revolution.  He forces the last of the staff to broadcast it.

I think the original movie is superior to this, just a bit.  That movie had the element of surprise.  What was Bill going to do?  How far would he go?  The creation of the suit, the motive, the gore… it was all unpredictable and bold.  This movie is more predictable, a problem with sequels.  We know now what Williamson is capable of and there’s also a lot more sitting around – Williamson is held up in a room with hostages for most of the duration.  It’s also hard to root for a man that arms ten year old girls and tells them to go home and kill their parents.

However, Boll continues to push the dirtiest anti-hero you’ll ever see in a movie and plays on public cynicism.  Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, those two alone must be mentioned half a dozen times each in the film.  I have no problem with seeing Uwe Boll showing us the figurative offices of CNN get raked with gunfire, even if its by an unhinged maniac.  In fact the whole thing is hilarious – Boll is careful with the black humor mixture – but also with a cold streak of truth running up its back.  Boll even presents some seriously dramatic character development – the ‘family phonecall’ scene is heavy, real heavy.

It’s hard to disagree with Mr. Williamson’s DVD message, even if some of his targets are questionable.  Uwe Boll is planning Rampage 3.  Is the White House the next stop?