Rampage

Meanwhile, there's been more Mulan casting news lately, with more Chinese actors and no whitewashing so far. I hope the story will be good too, but it's a long time to wait.

Also, The Simpsons stepped into the Apu controversy, and it was pretty shitty. Don't misuse Lisa Simpson like that! I love Hank Azaria, but there's no need for him to keep doing this character when he has others. Just because it started long ago, does not excuse it now, and just because it's animated doesn't make it okay either. I mean, fuck it. The Charlie Chan character started out with racist yellowface, but nobody today would DARE to reboot those mysteries in the same way now, in 2018. Get with the fucking times!

Anyway, I saw Rampage yesterday. It's an entertaining popcorn flick, like an attempt to have a King Kong vs Godzilla type movie. I never played the Rampage video game, so I don't care about faithfulness to the source material. However, the beginning part on the space station felt somewhat long, like it's own little mini movie, as did the part where the mercenaries tried to hunt down the Ralph the superwolf. It felt like a weird series of vignettes with characters who got killed off quickly, or who disappeared after only a couple of scenes. (Initially I thought that all the zoo workers were going to help track down George, but no, they were just minor characters at the beginning.) Once we got to the core plot with the main 3 humans and 2 villains, the plot was more straightforward. I do wonder why the mutated alligator Lizzie got so little to do; saving her just for the final battle in Chicago?

SPOILERS

I loved George the ape the most, and he was the main reason I watched the movie, due to the trailers highlighting that part. The relationship between George and Davis Okoye was funny and touching. It reminded me a little of the charms of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, even in the animals getting dosed by canisters containing gas. Of course, this gas was deliberately made by the evil Energyne company for weapons, rather than being a good-intentioned attempt to cure Alzheimer's; the animals didn't gain intelligence here; they just became superpowered aggressors.

It was a nice story, how Davis would do anything to save his buddy and get him a cure. They managed to get George back to his heroic self, but so far they didn't know how to return him to regular size. I suppose they could make a sequel about that if the move does well enough.