Skyscraper - movie review
Skyscraper
Plot: A father goes to great lengths to save his family from a burning skyscraper.
Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Neve Campbell, Chin Han
Director: Rawson Marshall Thurber
Certificate: 12A (moderate violence, threat, injury detail, infrequent strong language)
Runtime: 1hr 42 mins
Release Date: Thursday 12th July 2018
Dwayne Johnson continues his Hollywood dominance as he departs from the world of giant creatures and moves to Hong Kong in which he now tackles the tallest building in the world when it's attacked by a gang of mercenaries that kidnap his family. Going into Skyscraper, I didn't have the highest of expectations. I love Dwayne Johnson but everything I saw leading up to this looked atrocious. It seemed as if Hollywood producers saw that the thirtieth anniversary of Die Hard was approaching and thought, "let's make a loose remake of Die Hard with Dwayne Johnson but this time, we'll set everything on fire!" That's pretty much how I imagined the board meeting went. However, having now seen Skyscraper, I can safely say that it is exactly what I want, need and expect from a summer blockbuster starring Dwayne Johnson. BIG, DUMB FUN!
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| On today's episode of Mythbusters... |
Rampage didn't work for me simply because it was tonally inconsistent. At one point it was treating everything far too seriously and in another, it became a parody of itself. Skyscraper finds the appropriate tone and sticks to it. Having previously collaborated with Johnson on Central Intelligence, Rawson Marshall Thurber makes a simplistic, well-structured and effective action thriller that has its fair share of dumb moments but embraces them with open arms. At times, it really does stretch the limits of plausibility (Johnson takes inspiration from Ethan Hunt as he scales the exterior of the titular skyscraper using duct tape) but if you can buy into Thurber's approach from the outset, then Skyscraper is the ideal blockbuster for you. Johnson plays a former FBI agent who, in a past and tragic mission, lost his left leg. Now, he works as a security consultant and is hired to inspect and present a risk analysis for the tallest building in the world, The Pearl. In preparation for The Pearl's official opening, the building comes under siege by a group of mercenaries who want to burn it all to the ground and take the owner (Chin Han) with it. If that plot sounds like Die Hard crossed with The Towering Inferno, you would be correct. Fortunately, rather than sullying the name of those two classics, Skyscraper pays homage to them and borrows elements where it needs to. As for Johnson, I've got a mindblowing theory that not only relates to his character in Skyscraper but all of his movies over the past decade. I believe that every movie starring Dwayne Johnson is set in its own parallel universe in which Johnson decided to pursue a different career path. That would explain why he seems to play the exact same person in every other film but because he is Dwayne Johnson and is charm and charisma personified, he miraculously makes it work. The one unique difference about Johnson in this dimension is his prosthetic and how Thurber cleverly incorporates it into scenes to create some well-warranted tension. It's the first character of Johnson's that feels particularly vulnerable even if it is a little peculiar to see Johnson rugby tackle bad guys whilst hopping on one leg.
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| Never mention The Scorpion King. |
FACT: Brad Peyton and Roland Emmerich were considered to direct the movie.
The action in Skyscraper is fairly rudimentary and nowhere close to pushing any boundaries but where the film does succeed is in creating these giant and extravagant set-pieces where Johnson takes his life into his own hands. In one of the standout sequences of the summer (I'm deadly serious), Johnson climbs a nearby crane and jumps from it in an attempt to enter the tower. As preposterous as it sounds, it really is one of the most nail-biting sequences this summer and at one point, generated a very rare gasp from myself. Is it absolutely bonkers? Yes. Is it teetering on the edge of becoming an idiotic B-movie? Yes. But did I have a smile on my face for nearly the entire runtime? Yes. It does really struggle in the opening act due to Thurber taking far too long to kick everything into gear ready for the main event as we get a collection scenes solely dedicated to providing exposition for Johnson's character, the layout of The Pearl, the owner's mysterious past and characters whose only reason for being there is to double cross our hero at some eventual point. Despite the rocky start (pun intended) as soon as the spark is ignited (literally) and The Pearl is engulfed in flames, Skyscraper finds its groove and rarely strays away. Even though it is the Dwayne Johnson show once again, that doesn't stop a couple of the supporting performances stealing the limelight. Neve Campbell certainly makes her mark as Johnson's wife but rather than play a stereotypical damsel in distress, Campbell gets the chance to play along too with her character happening to be a former combat medic. Thurber even manages to get half decent performances out of the child actors and that's not an easy task when they're being surrounded by green screen. The only performances that don't quite work are the villains themselves. The lead mercenary seems as if he was ripped directly out of an 80s serial crime drama packed with sinister snarls and one-liners. The rest are disposable bodies for Johnson to bulldoze his way through.
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| That doesn't look comfortable. |
Skyscraper is by no means going to end up on my top ten movies of the year but if someone were to ask me what the most enjoyable film over the summer was, Skyscraper would certainly be in that discussion. Johnson is the action hero of our time and like Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Willis, a 100% record is never guaranteed but when a film of theirs hits that sweet spot, you can kick your feet back, leave your brain at the door and allow yourself to fall into the secure arms of Dwayne Johnson.
My Verdict: 8/10
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