Director Brad Peyton's latest "Let's smash a city with Dwayne Johnson" feature may be based on a video game, but it plays like a live-action cartoon, one that doubles as a fantastical journey into the imagination and sensibility of a 10-year-old boy, complete with rude hand gestures and goofy declarations of badassery: "You mess with me, you mess with my friend, mother..." It's not that the result is good, exactly, but it is kind of impressive to see adults so in touch with their inner child. Anyway, there are monsters loose in Chicago: genetically juiced and edited versions of an alligator, a wolf, and a gorilla named George. Is there any way to stop them, short of dropping the Mother of All Bombs? Nobody onscreen seems to be trying all that hard, at least performance-wise: the normally charming Johnson looks positively weary, while Jeffrey Dean Morgan looks (and sounds) like he's parodying Tommy Lee Jones' character from Men in Black. But the effects team — they were giving it their all. (2018) — Matthew Lickona
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