A giant gorilla and a winged wolf: Does ‘Rampage’ get the science of CRISPR right?
We here at STAT cover CRISPR a lot. But it’s not every day we get to cover Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
The Rock and the genome-editing technology meet in a new movie, “Rampage,” coming out Friday. Through a freak accident, a gorilla, a wolf, and a crocodile ingest some CRISPR complexes. The animals — whose genomes become edited to make them stronger, bigger, faster, and more aggressive — soon wreak havoc on the city of Chicago.
It’s packed with action, gratuitous destruction, and an anti-poaching message, along with at least a dozen references to CRISPR, some of which are even accurate, say STAT reporters (and amateur movie critics) Megan Thielking and Andrew Joseph, who saw an advanced screening this week. Here are their thoughts — both scientific and cinematic — on the film. This conversation contains spoilers.
MEGAN: So that was incredible.
ANDREW: This movie has everything: rich biotech baddies with clothes as fancy as their skyscraper headquarters; meditations on how mankind is just as primitive as the animal kingdom (and how we’re actually a horrible and much worse species); and a gigantic wolf with a taste for helicopters. But before we dive into the movie, let’s give a bit of background. Megan, in addition to being a serious science journalist, you’re a big Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson fan. How did we end up at this advanced screening?
Read more: How CRISPR works, explained in two minutes
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