Skyscraper – 2 out of 5
I like The Rock. I was a fan of him when he was rasslin’ in his Sports Entertainment days and, although I was skeptical of his journey into a film career, I feel he’s come a long way in his acting and has definitely made a name for himself. The guy is badass, charming and incredibly likeable and it has come to the point that if he is attached to a film, I will check it out with no questions asked. So, when I first saw the trailer for Skyscraper, I said, “Yes, I will see this based on the presence of Dwayne Johnson alone.” However, despite the undeniable screen presence the man is, he alone can’t make everything he is in work.
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| Still, I can't help but reiterate that he has an incredible screen presence and an undeniable charm. |
Will Sawyer (Johnson) was once a Marine and FBI Hostage Rescue Team leader and is now a private security consultant after a suicide bomber leaves him with his left leg being amputated. At the behest of a former colleague, he takes a job from a man named Zhao Long Ji (Chin Han). He is hired to assess the security of “The Pearl,” the newest skyscraper and one that dwarfs all those previous. His family, his wife Sarah (Neve Campbell) and his two kids, are invited to live in the currently unoccupied residential floors while he does his work. While offsite, the skyscraper is attacked by terrorists and set ablaze. With his family trapped in the building, Sawyer must now stop at nothing to rescue them and take control of the high-tech skyscraper back.
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| "And in this room of the skyscraper is where I keep all my Beanie Babies... trust me, they will return in popularity." |
I’m not going to say I had high expectations for Skyscraper. I was hoping for a popcorn action film and, for the most part, it was that but not to an extent that made it very entertaining. A lot of comparisons were made to Die Hard with this film and I get that on a base level but there was also a The Towering Inferno vibe the story put off. In fact, the whole feature had a feeling like it belonged to the late 80s/early 90s genre of action films as it centers on losing control of a state-of-the-art item—in this case, an entire building. So, on a purely superficial level with the genre and the star, this film feels like it should at least be good enough for a fun film but I honestly was kinda bored with it.
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| "Hi, I'm the bad guy. I infiltrated this establishment disguised as a worker. It's cliche, I know, but it works." |
I think the experience for this one was soured for me due to action sequences that didn’t really sink its hooks into me and the fact that The Rock’s charisma didn’t feel entirely utilized. While there are definitely cool moments that are exciting to watch, there never felt like there were enough of them and the small action moments felt hollow and almost like filler. Even worse, the film’s final action sequence takes place in a VR “globe” that is intended to be the “heart” of the giant skyscraper and the set pieces delivered in this final climax did little to arouse my interest. It ended up boiling down to a by-the-numbers shoot-up but a by-the-numbers shoot-up that felt like it was place in a funhouse hall of mirrors. The predictable gags are all featured and they did little to keep me engaged. The sad part is that all the gags have been seen before and done better.
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| I can't emphasize enough just how disappointing this sequence was. |
As much as I like Dwayne Johnson, I felt Skyscraper never fully utilized or tapped into his natural likeability. He has his moments of charm and his moments of looking like an unstoppable badass but the entire story and film feels so bottom-of-the-barrel generic that he never truly feels like he’s allowed to be the person who can be the leading man and box office giant that he is. The performances in this film are genuinely good but there never feels like a moment for anyone to really showcase how great they can be because the production feels like it is just doing the bare minimum to make a popcorn action feature. This perceived level of energy ended up resulting in a movie that feels very underwhelming nearly its entire running length.
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| It was awfully convenient to have the giant monitors in place and have the local news get such great footage of the action for the spectators on the ground level. |
Finally, one last element of the film felt like it should have been important but, like so much, ended up feeling like it wasn’t utilized: Sawyer having an artificial leg. This is cool in concept because we’re going to have an action star that represents a group of people that have never been showcased in the action genre but, sadly, the whole element felt superfluous. The story sets it up like it would come into play in a way that may mean that Sawyer will have this used against him or will be something that helps make Sawyer victorious but, ultimately, the whole element feels tacked on and doesn’t come into play enough to warrant its existence. In fact, at times it felt like it was established and completely forgotten and then used as a last minute add-on.
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| If this was me, I would have fallen... long before I even got to the top of the crane. |
Skyscraper isn’t a particularly bad film. It has its moments and the cast is doing a great job. The problem is the film just isn’t memorable. It would be easy to call this feature a rip-off of The Towering Inferno or Die Hard but it doesn’t feel like it is trying hard enough to rip anything off. To me, the feature just felt like a barebones popcorn action film that rests its haunches on action tropes and never leans in and utilizes the elements it really needed to take advantage of in order to be an entertaining movie.
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