WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for the film Rampage, which is currently screening in theaters.

There are few kinds of adaptations more maligned than the video game movie. While comics, books and television series have all enjoyed massive success in being adapted for the screen, video game movies have been pining for decades for that mysterious, quality film that finally merits they be taken seriously. Recent releases have made strides in this direction, chief among them being Brad Peyton’s Rampage, an adaptation of the 1986 arcade game developed by Midway Games. There is a reason for that. In excising much of its video game roots, Rampage becomes something entirely different -- a pretty decent movie, though not without its flaws.

In the original Rampage arcade game, players took control of one of three towering monsters: the gorilla George, a werewolf named Ralph or a Godzilla-like monster called Lizzie. The monsters tear through 43 American states and two Canadian provinces with the goal of destroying cities and eating as many citizens as possible along the way. Each monster was originally human, victims of the nefarious Scumlabs’ experimentation. George is transformed by an experimental vitamin supplement, Ralph becomes a werewolf after downing an untested food additive and Lizzie’s predicament becomes clear after a dip in a radiation-poisoned lake.

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Rampage does away with much of those origins right from the beginning. The too-on-the-nose Scumlabs is no more, replaced by the forebodingly benign sounding Energyne corporation. While Energyne almost certainly traffics in hinky food additives and dodgy nutritional supplements, such elements do not play a role in the emergence of the three monsters. In the film, the monsters do not start off as people. Instead, they are merely animals infected with a virus the quickly edits their genes and causes them to get bigger, heal faster and become highly aggressive.

According to Peyton, there was an early script that followed the game’s storyline more closely, focusing on monsters that were originally people. That script was shot down as too unrealistic, and the movie is all the better for it. The story change allows Rampage to focus on its underlying narrative, which is the unchecked power of major corporations and the myriad ways human intervention seriously impacts our fragile ecosystems. Big movie monsters often act as personifications of contemporary fears, and in this way, Rampage feels ripped from the headlines. A film about disgruntled lab workers exposed to crazy chemicals and turned into ravenous beasts holds its own popcorn flick appeal, but would seriously lack modern relevance and, given the fact that the monsters themselves are probably going to eat a person or two, could make the creatures far less sympathetic. There is only so much pity an audience can have for a cannibal the size of a skyscraper, after all.

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If Rampage is at its best when it is disregarding its video game roots, then it is also at its worst when it is paying homage to them. That blame falls squarely on the film’s antagonists, which are so flat, poorly acted and stereotypical that they feel like they were pulled right from the set of a ‘90s full motion video game. Full motion video games, otherwise known as FMV games, might hold their place in history (some are endearingly cheesy when put into the context of the time), but their tendency to rely on campy, mustache twirling villains played by D-list actors makes them laughable these days. It is a shame, then, that it feels like Malin Akerman and Jake Lacy, who play the brother and sister pair in charge of Energyne, were instructed to emulate such a strange, niche era of acting. There is a moment in the film where Lacy’s Brett Wyden exasperatedly explains why he is so afraid of getting arrested, all while passionately gesturing with a takeout sandwich in hand, each gesticulation sending finely quaffed hair even further out of whack. Devoid of any kind of additional characterization, the performances come off as bafflingly distant and unintentionally comedic.

RELATED: Rampage’s Chicago Setting Is Far More Relevant Than You Realize

Make no mistake, this is an issue with the film’s acting, but it is also a condemnation of the scripting and directing. The overall effect is that Rampage feels manic, as if there are two opposing movies butting heads. One of those movies is a fun, enjoyable action film that escalates in ways that are fantastical but logical given the rules it defines, and is sometime even heartfelt. The other movie, though, wants to bring video game levels of bombast that harken back to the franchise’s arcade roots and the generally edgy tone adopted by games of the era. Rampage wants to be an action movie, but it also wants to be a video game movie. The problem is, it really only excels at being the former.

The Valhalla of video game movies is strewn with the bodies of films that tried to deliver both conventional action movie charm and the kind of experiential, nostalgic-driven craziness only possible in video games. It never works. Rampage stars Dwayne Johnson, who knows the pitfalls of the video game movie all too well, having starred in the 2005 fever dream that was Doom, an adaptation of one of the most revered and historically important games of all time. The film was a massive failure both critically and at the box office. Today, it is largely remembered for its worst scene: A first-person crawl through a Martian research station, the sole purpose of which is to emulate the visuals of mowing down demons in the source material. Nothing about Rampage is anywhere near as egregious as that scene, but for all the good the film does it still feels like there are moments where it feels obligated to dip back into that dated video game aesthetic and drag some skeleton from the past out for the audience’s enjoyment.

In theaters now, Rampage is directed by Brad Peyton and stars Dwayne Johnson as Davis Okoye, Naomie Harris as Dr. Kate Caldwell, Malin Åkerman as Claire Wyden, Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Harvey Russell, Jake Lacy as Brett Wyden, Joe Manganiello as Burke, P. J. Byrne as Nelson, Breanne Hill as Amy and Jack Quaid as Connor.