'Rampage' a lighthearted throwback to old-fashioned creature features

“Rampage” - ★ ★ ★

If you thought Chicago took a beating in “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” and in the “Divergent” trilogy, prepare to be tossed for a loop when “Rampage” tosses the Loop.

In this humor-injected, video-game-based, retro creature feature, the Windy City becomes a bubble of rubble when invaded by four angry, destructive, abnormally large giants: a gorilla, a crocodile, a wolf and Dwayne Johnson.

Admittedly, three gargantuan freaks of nature are no match for the Rock. So, we must suspend our disbelief for 104 minutes of monster-mashing fun.

“Rampage” marks the third pairing of Johnson and director Brad Peyton after the serviceable “San Andreas” and “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island.” They hit their cinematic stride here with thrills, scares, pathos and suspense, laced with comic flourishes just short of parody.

The screenplay employs corporate greed and military hubris as its chief villains in a pro-conservation story that integrates pop-culture references into the narrative, rather than simply slathering them on as “Ready Player One” does.

“Rampage” channels “King Kong” with the Willis Tower substituting for New York's Empire State Building. George, an adorable albino gorilla raised by primatologist Davis Okoye (Johnson), performs the Kong role.

Davis rescued George in the jungle after poachers killed his family. Davis teaches the simian sign language, which, given George's bawdy sense of humor, he sometimes regrets.

One night, George witnesses what appears to be a meteorite slamming into the compound. He finds a strange-looking storage unit containing a genetically edited pathogen designated as a weapon of mass destruction.

Exposed to the pathogen, George quickly grows into a gigantic wild animal. Davis keeps him calm, but the military - embodied by a Texas cowboy agent named Russell (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) - shows up to make things much worse.

Then come reports of two other pathogen-created monsters, a giant wolf that possesses flying squirrel-like wings, and an oversized crocodile resembling a cross between a T-rex and an Ankylosaurus.

Claire and Brett Wyden (Malin Akerman and Jake Lacy), heads of Wyden Technologies in Willis Tower, plan to sell the weaponized pathogen they created. Claire, armed with a serum to control the creatures, uses a high-frequency signal to call the beasts to the Windy City.

(Hey, if we can ignore the logic in “A Quiet Place,” we can cut the far less realistic “Rampage” some slack.)

Peyton moves “Rampage” at a breakneck pace, employing top-grade visual effects and a caffeinated camera to capture the nonstop action film with the feel of a classic 1950s monster movie.

Davis, assisted by Naomie Harris' athletic Dr. Kate Caldwell (the outraged pathogen creator), gives Johnson's face its most intense movie workout. Scared, awed, jubilant or relieved, Johnson's expressions provide all the gravitas needed to anchor this fantastic tale.

Meanwhile, San Francisco better watch out.

More pathogen canisters might be out there, and the Golden Gate Bridge always takes it on the concrete chin in disaster films.

<b>Starring:</b> Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris, Malin Akerman, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jake Lacy

<b>Directed by:</b> Brad Peyton

<b>Other:</b> A Warner Bros. release. Rated PG-13 for language, crude gestures and violence. 107 minutes