Freeze Frame: “Rampage” (PG-13), “Truth or Dare” (PG-13), “Beirut” (R)

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has a knack for making a silk purse out of a cinematic sow’s ear. Can he do the same for the cursed video game genre? Maybe so.  In “Rampage,” based on the Midway arcade game, Johnson plays a primatologist who has to figure out what to do when a genetic experiment goes wrong and his favorite albino gorilla grows to Kong size. The ape and a giant mutated wolf and alligator, head to downtown Chicago in a destructive rage.

It’s as goofy as it sounds, but the visuals are spectacular and Johnson’s outsized charisma helps, too. “Rampage” is better than it has any business being.

Blumhouse, the phenomenally successful production company responsible for a slew of hit horror films, might have finally jumped the shark. “Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare” is an annoying creepfest about a group of teens on spring break in Mexico who play a game of Truth or Dare that’s been overtaken by a demon. Naturally, things turn deadly and the participants desperately try to figure a way out. There are a few scares, but mostly it’s just irritating. The truth is, it’s bad and I wouldn’t watch it again on a dare.

Jon Hamm stars in “Beirut,” an involving thriller about a one-time US diplomat who is forced by CIA operatives Rosamund Pike and Dean Norris to help save a colleague from terrorists in Lebanon the 1980s. Hamm inherits his best role since “Mad Men,” but Pike is wasted in yet another part that doesn’t give her much to work with.

Also opening this week, “Finding Your Feet” is a comic drama from Britain about folks of a certain age who find romance at a community dance class. “Best F(r)iends” is black comedy that reunites the team behind the celebrated bad movie “The Room,” Tommy Wiseau and Greg Sestero. 

Share This Episode