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Skyscraper Review
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Directed By: Rawson Marshall Thurber
Written By: Rawson Marshall Thurber
Runtime: 102 minutes
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for sequences of gun violence and action, and for brief strong language
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson – Will Sawyer
Neve Campbell – Sarah Sawyer
Chin Han – Zhao Long Ji
Roland Møller – Kores Botha
Byron Mann – Inspector Wu
McKenna Roberts – Georgia
Noah Cottrell – Henry
Hannah Quinlivan – Xia
Adrian Holmes – Ajani Okeke
Pablo Schreiber – Ben
Noah Taylor – Mr. Pierce
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is back on the big screen, where he has to brave evil terrorists and the world’s largest building being set ablaze, in the new action romp Skyscraper. In what is clearly an ode to old-school action fare, such as Die Hard, The Rock plays mild-mannered security assessor and family man, Will Sawyer, who has to fight against all odds to save his family.
At the start of the film, Will Sawyer is an FBI field agent specializing in hostage situations. One incident goes very bad, and an assailant detonates a bomb vest while holding his young child. The explosion leaves Will with only one leg, but he also marries and starts a family with his surgeon, Sarah (Campbell); a former combat medic.
10 years later, and Will is a struggling, blue-collar security specialist, raising two kids with Sarah: Georgia (Roberts) and Henry (Cottrell). The family is staying in a lavish, audacious building in China, the world’s largest, which has been dubbed The Pearl by its insanely rich owner Zhao Long Ji (Han). Will is there to provide his security assessment of the tower, thanks to a referral from his old FBI colleague Ben (Schreiber).
Unfortunately, The Pearl is about to become subject to siege of bad guys led by the sinister Kores Botha (Møller). After stealing Will’s tablet that grants access to the building’s entire security network, Botha and his minions set a massive fire to the building, and while Will’s wife and kids are still trapped in the residential floors. With the authorities believing Will is the culprit, he has to race against the clock in order to break back into a nigh-impregnable fortress that’s taller than the Burj Khalifa to save his family.
Skyscraper is essentially The Rock’s ode to old-school action fare such as Die Hard, which he’s been very open about on social media. Johnson’s charisma definitely manages to shine throughout the film, even during its weaker and more predictable moments. His performance definitely adds a centering quality to some of the more absurd acrobatic and death-defying moments, along with some well-placed, pithy one-liners. However, Johnson’s rather casual aside of, “This is stupid,” before attempting to scale the titular skyscraper might have been too meta for its own good.
As an action-thriller, Skyscraper is a passable, decent viewing experience. Johnson’s performance as a working-class family man is believable. He’s good at showing vulnerability, and Will Sawyer having to brave his death-defying feats while on a prosthetic leg offers a nice twist to the premise.
All the familiar character types you’ve seen in similar action films of the 1980s and 1990s are here. Byron Mann, Ryu in the 1993 Street Fighter movie, shows up as the detective assigned to the crisis. Mann doesn’t have a whole lot to do besides react to what’s going on, but it is sort of neat to see him in a big movie again.
Where Skyscraper is lacking is its rather dull, perfunctory villains, led by Kores Botha. They are discount action movie bad guys. They are indiscernible from lower budget, B-movie action fare. An elevating performance a la Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber this is not. Even a strong thespian such as Noah Taylor is wasted in a glorified henchman role. The coolest looking baddie is the lethal Xia, played by Hannah Quinlivan. She has a captivating look and a deadly demeanor. Unfortunately, she’s pretty marginalized in the film as well.
Neve Campbell’s character is actually set up to be a refreshing inversion on the usual archetype for the significant other who is found in these films. She’s actually a military veteran who has done tours in Afghanistan and knows how to take care of herself instead of a frightened and wilting damsel in distress. Unfortunately, that subplot becomes a missed opportunity in the second half, when Sarah makes contact with the authorities. Sarah isn’t really marginalized, but after she’s set up as a combat medic, it’s obviously seeded that she’s the last type of person who terrorists would want to mess with and threaten; much like her husband. So, the later attempts to get Sarah in on the action are decidedly weak.
At the very least, the movie doesn’t start with Sarah and Will’s marriage on the rocks, which has become an incredibly lazy narrative device. While Neve Campbell does good with what she’s given, her chemistry with Johnson as her husband is lacking.
The action in Skyscraper is fairly well done and suspenseful for the most part, if not overtly absurd. Director Marshall Thurber knows how to film Johnson in peril and make the audience believe he’s hanging on for dear life. He also does a good job of adding to the suspense by cutting to reactions from watching bystanders and spectators. The main drawback, though, is that Marshall Thurber’s film and script go out of its way to overtly cater to the international crowd.
Skyscraper is in no ways groundbreaking, but it’s not really trying to be either. It’s just trying to be a crowd-pleasing action romp. For the most part, it accomplishes that pretty well.
