Rampage: Capital Punishment (2014)

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Rampage: Capital Punishment is the highly anticipated sequel to the Uwe Boll directed Rampage released in 2009. Many audiences and critics found the original film to be a surprise in terms of film making since Uwe Boll has been considered a very poor filmmaker. Having seen the original and considering a very refreshing and entertaining film, one had expectations about this film. This sequel is not on the same level as the original mainly because we are already used to the shock value. Though in this film, the action (in terms of the ruthless shootings) are less, it is more centered inside a smaller plot scale. This film is still a solid watch if you were a fan of the original and the performance of lead Brendan Fletcher is still very thoughtful, and engaging. Taking place in a television studio, we see Bill continue with his rants and keeping hostages of workers in there. What happens in the end is quite clever.

Guy fell and broke CD in half? And the dude carries an extra copy? Hahaha!! CD's don't break in half like glass, idiot!! There're so many scenes in the movie where this guy could have been taken out easily yet everyone acted like sheep being herded. And the undercover cop stood out with hand in the back supposedly reaching for gun but just stood there waiting to get shot. Hahaha!! that's hilarious. And the 2 victims came to take his body....well, they could have taken his gun...duh!!! Oh...and that stupid lady got upset stood up and yelling but didn't do anything?? That makes no sense. Bottom line is I think a 10 yr old can make a better movie.

I have to say I'm quite shocked by the generally positive fan- reception of Uwe Boll's latest cinematic opus- the sequel "Rampage 2: Capital Punishment." Frankly, because I thought this film marked a step back for Boll after the problematic-but-oddly-satisfying original. Yes, to me, this film felt much like Boll's more infamous early work ("House of the Dead", "BloodRayne", etc.) in that it came off as far too cheap, seems obviously quickly thrown together as a cash-grab, and suffers some bizarrely poor writing.But hey, to each his own, I guess.The film follows the continuing exploits of the mass murderer Bill Williamson (Brendan Fletcher in a phenomenal performance... especially for the sub- par material), a man whose world-weariness has caused him to go rogue and attempt to educate the world of its many social and political, all while making dramatic examples by killing off random people in his titular rampages. This time Bill's goal is to raid and take over a television news station, in order to publicly broadcast a personal recording and live interview so he can reach new audiences with his "messages" and ideals.And while this does sound like a promising set-up, the film quickly implodes under the weight of its cheap production and writer/director Boll's laughable attempts at writing socio-political material. To start, this film is extremely hard to watch. Not due to graphic violence or shocking content, mind you. No, it's hard to watch because it's just so poorly made. Production value and general mood are non-existent with an obvious lack of budget and and even bigger lack of creativity. The film is predominately confined to a single location (the television studio), which presents a good opportunity to build a sense of dread through isolation and claustrophobia, but the boring shaky-cam camera-work and haphazard guidance of Boll do nothing to build off of this. It's just clearly being thrown together without much thought, outside of "let's shake and zoom the camera every 2 seconds to try and falsely manufacture a sense of grit." The fact that the scope is drastically reduced does also betray the material, especially after the larger, more "important" and impacting feel of the original. And the bizarre over-use of stock- footage (I would estimate up to 30% of the film is just repeated flashbacks of the original) makes it feel all the more cheap and thrown-together for the sake of a quick cash-in on the minor success of the first film. It's pretty bankrupt from a creative standpoint, and shows a lack of thought or planning.The writing takes a rather large drastic plunge as well. While I did have some issues with the first film's messy narrative, it worked within the confines of the story that Boll was trying to tell. Here, everything is just so... forced, contrived and preachy, it feels less like an honest effort from a filmmaker, and more like the pretentious ramblings of a first-year film-student's thesis work. Dialog ranges from laughable to groan-inducing, the social-political messages are forced in with all the subtlety of a brick-to-the-face, and the aimless writing will give you whiplash with how horrible it goes through shifts in focus. The most cringe-worthy scene being a bizarre sequence in which Bill (who Boll is clearly trying to build up as an anti-hero) goes on a bizarrely contrived rant against yoga of all things, making tenuous random thought-connections in order to justify violence against an innocent woman. Seriously Boll... you're so bitter against the world, you now have to attack yoga as though it's a death-sentence worthy crime? Not to mention, this scene and others like it undermine the entire message of the film by making everything that comes out of Bill's mouth sound like psychotic ravings, instead of intelligent thought. So congratulations, Boll... you invalidated your own darned film and everything it's trying to say.The only saving grace here- indeed the only reason you may want to consider watching the film- is for the amazing performance of Brendan Fletcher. Fletcher is obviously having a great deal of fun with the material, and seems to have a lot of faith in the concept. This is an award-worthy role for Fletcher, and it's a shame he's so devoting himself to such bad filmmaking.This is a tragic mess by any stretch of the imagination. It's cheap, forced, aimless and displays some truly poor examples of filmmaking.And for that, I am giving "Rampage 2: Capital Punishment" a very poor 3 out of 10.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. Having watched the first Rampage, I somewhat knew what to expect. I'm glad that the makers didn't decided to digress Bill's killing sprees to something equivalent to a child with mommy issues. He has a clear goal that he is trying to accomplish. I found myself agreeing with him on every subject. Sometimes it feels like the only way to get through to people is violence. I feel like he could have targeted more important people but that didn't take from the movie at all. The only thing I wish is that someone would give the makers a better budget. Its not low quality. However, it could definitely use some makeup.