Skyscraper

I was hoping 'Skyscraper' would be in the vein of 'Die Hard', a bad-ass, original and epic action movie where anything felt on the cards as a possibility. Instead it was pretty much the opposite of all of those things. 'The Rock' was given almost no opportunity to show off his undeniable charm. The script just hampered him in every way and left him as nothing more than a muscly guy who could do impressive stunts. But trust me, 'The Rock' is the least of the problems this film has.

The biggest gripe I have is just how dull it is. The film actually starts off with a pretty menacing villain and some violent and brutal killings. At this stage I had hope for the film, but all of that ended pretty abruptly and from that point onwards every bad guy in the film was unbelievably incompetent. The whole story arc plays out in about as cliche of a fashion as you could ever imagine. It's all very underwhelming and disappointing.

As for positives they are hard to come by. Some of the visuals are impressive and 'The Rock' does his best to keep things watchable despite being given absolutely no help. Otherwise though I would say this is a complete misfire and not worth anyone's time or money.

Skyscraper's premise is pretty easy to put together, the poster for the movie almost encompasses it entirely. With a high rise building on fire, Will Sawyer (Dwayne Johnson) must save his wife Sarah (Neve Campbell) and his kids from a team of terrorists led by Kores Botha (Roland Moller). This isn't new, you've got the classics like Die Hard and this movie uses them as a foundation to build upon. Does it differentiate from those movies? I think it does but not always in a good way. There are times where the screenwriter (Rawson Marshall Thurber pulling both writing and directing duties) seems to be tipping his cap to the audience (the jokes around duct tape work the best) but as the movie slips farther and farther into cliche and implausibility, the more difficult I have extending that praise. How in on the joke was the creative team? I honestly don't know, I want to believe they were but some of the decisions the characters make contradict that line of thinking (this is a continual problem not just a one off).

Getting past whether the writer/director was aiming for this kind of film or if they stumbled into it, I have to credit the cast for making lemonade out of lemons. Dwayne Johnson is a bona fide movie star and he gives a decent performance. He tries as hard as he can, and he works in this more often than he doesn't. I thought Neve Campbell was pretty good, she had believable chemistry with Dwayne and she breathes life into what could be a stale character. Chin Han was solid, it was nice to see him in a bigger part and he does his job. Skyscraper doesn't do Noah Taylor or Roland Moller any favours in their respective roles as Mr. Pierce and Kores. I think Roland comes off a little better, but Noah is doomed by his higher profile and you can see where he's heading from moment one. I also felt bad for Pablo Schreiber as Ben, he's a great actor but he hasn't had the best of luck picking projects now that he's transitioning to movies.

Skyscraper has a sizeable budget and the quality of the visual effects benefits for the most part. There was never a point that I was put off by a bad piece of CGI or disappointed from a visual standpoint. The movie has a few nice cinematography moments (they make the most out of the hall of mirrors room cliché) and the fights were okay. Dwayne wasn't 100 percent consistent in acting like an amputee (he's really limping in some scenes, in others not so much) but the action is passable.

I do have plenty of complaints when it comes to Skyscraper, but I can't get deep into them without spoiling big moments in the film. Most of them centre around character motivations (is this really the easiest thing the terrorists could think of to get what they need?), character decisions (I admire Will's commitment to his family but considering what happens, why would he believe his family is still alive at the midpoint?) and really cheesy choices that undermine the thriller aspects of Skyscraper. They would have derailed the movie for me if I hadn't been having such a good time laughing and wondering where they would go next.

I didn't give this movie a high rating, but I was genuinely surprised with how much fun I had with Skyscraper. Did I feel bad for giggling at the implausibility of the plot? A little... the theatre was 1/2 full but the friend I saw this with had the same reaction. Expectations are key when deciding to watch this movie. If you've seen some movies like Skyscraper, the plot twists are going to be obvious, the sentimentality is going to make your eyes roll (even if the actors and actresses are selling out to make it work), and there are going to be some head shaking moments that will try your patience. But I give the cast, the visual effects department and the screenwriter a pat on the back for doing their best and taking what could be a trainwreck into an enjoyable 1hr and 45minutes at the theatre. If you're looking for a turn-your-brain-off style action/thriller with high production values and a talented group of actors, this movie could scratch that type of itch.

It's not actually awful or even bad per se, but it's worse.. yes it's mediocrity defined! It's predictable, rather boring and all the best parts have been shown in the trailers. Dwayne Johnson is good, but can't save this. Sorry!

I was pretty entertained. The Rock is a capable actor but he's always gonna impress more with his charisma than range. But this "dad" type role suited him well. And while he's still former military/police, he comes across more as capable than physically dominant like he often is in other films. This trait is enhanced by his disability set up in the beginning of the film.

The movie has a pretty unbelievable plot and storyline but the editing is fairly strong. The story is kept moving and events are explained quickly to keep things going and avoid getting caught up in any convoluted plot points trying to explain why anything is the way it is. I really think the pace was the strongest part of this film.

The climax is where the motivations get a little bogged down in a conveniently contrived backstory to explain why the villains are motivated.

All that said, it's a solid action flick with a bit of heart, a lot of explosions and some fun fights mixed in with a lot of high wire acrobatics by The Rock that will definitely make your palms sweat.

Personally, I'd say this is The Rock's best lead role since his early days in The Rundown and Walking Tall. I certainly enjoyed it far more than I anticipated. I think the beginning scene could've been just explained through backstory and the explanation about the villains before the climax was pretty cheesy, but it didn't detract from my enjoyment of the film.

Actors were all mostly decent, I cheered for the main character and it's a family oriented action film so you know it has a happy ending. But it still did a decent job of making things suspenseful and enjoyable along the way.

I'm going to start by saying it was a good idea about the skyscraper, how the producers do the design of it... But we have to be serious in some of the scene ... how can he jump from the crane to the building and then in other scen he can't jump like 7ft The little boy almost doesn't appear in all the movie... He says like 10 lines and that's it In the first scenes they try to make real the fact of breath the smoke in putting the wet towels but in the last part after being like 4 hours in that building they look like they're breathing pure oxygen like they were in a forest