Before Dwayne Johnson was the biggest movie star on the planet, he was the most electrifying man in sports entertainment. It turns out that The Rock's newest movie has a secret shout out to his previous career. The animation supervisor on Rampage has revealed that in one scene during the climactic battle of the new film, the giant gorilla named George actually delivers The Rock's signature finishing move, The People's Elbow. According to Dave Clayton...
As a nod to Dwayne in the final battle, George the gorilla has to attack Lizzie in the background as Dwayne's character Davis is running by, and so as a bit of background action, we had George do the People's Elbow to Lizzie. Davis is running towards the Apache and Lizzie is really going to work on George. As Davis runs towards the camera and hops into that Apache and starts lighting up Lizzie [with its guns]. In that moment you see George in the background giving the elbow.
As somebody who was a fan of The Rock back in the WWE days, I'm now a little bummed that I was paying too much attention to Dwayne Johnson's character in the foreground and thus missed this reference in the background. Seeing a giant gorilla drop an elbow on a massive alligator is just the sort of fun insanity that made Rampage a great movie, and the meta-ness of seeing George bust out an old wrestling move from the Rock would have been perfect. The elbow drop is a bit tough to pull off in a movie in a way that feels organic. As opposed to The Rock's other signature move, the Rock Bottom, which he once gave to Jason Statham in a Fast and Furious movie.
Of course, it seems unlikely that George actually delivered the full People's Elbow to Lizzie, no matter what SyFy Wire says. The fact is that the People's Elbow is far more than just a simple elbow drop. There's a level of theatricality to it that only The Rock can pull off. Also, it doesn't really work without ring ropes.
For many of us, Dwayne Johnson will always be The Rock, but the man has built the most successful film career to ever come out of professional wrestling, making him truly a movie star and not just a wrestler turned actor. He's on something of a hot streak of movies at the moment with both Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and Rampage becoming box office hits. Johnson will hope to see that streak continue with Skyscraper set to hit theaters this summer.
