We follow former FBI agent Will Sawyer (Dwayne Johnson) who is hired as a security consultant for a state of the art Hong Kong skyscraper called The Pearl. Eventually, the skyscraper is attacked by terrorists with Wills family stuck on the 96th floor. Will being framed for the raid on the building, he is also the only person who can save his family from this burning building. Cue over the top action and unrealistic action sequences.
Die Hard....but not: Let's be honest, no one is going into this movie expecting it to be the next Die Hard but I at least was hopeful that it would be an entertaining silly action flick. If it wasn't for Dwayne Johnson's charisma then his movies would be far from the immensely entertaining movies that they are. Once in a while, he’ll make a genuinely good movie but they are far and in-between.
Utter madness: The Rock is always incredibly entertaining in every role he chooses, he brings a certain charm that a lot of actors don't know how to bring. Your enjoyment with this movie will completely depend on your expectations, don’t go in expecting this movie to be Die Hard because, besides the main copycat premise, the movie doesn't have many similarities. However, if you go in and leave your brain out of the screen room then you will find something here that is genuinely so stupid that it becomes entertaining to watch. That word “entertaining” will come up a lot in this review because there’s no other way to describe Skyscraper other than pure silly entertainment.
Over-the-top: The acting ranges from good to way over the top, mainly with the movie's villains. The Rock has cemented himself as this generations headline action star. So there's not much I can say about him other than this is the same old Rock we’ve seen time and time again, put this movie and Rampage side by side and I'm sure you could barely tell the difference in characters. I really enjoyed seeing Neve Campbell in a mainstream movie again because she’s a great actress and doesn't get enough attention anymore. You really feel she cares for her family. Everyone else is nothing is special, the villains are very one note and cliche but at least their over the top moments are somewhat enjoyable after seeing The Rock jumping from a skyscraper into a burning building.
“Have you got any duck tape”: We all come to this movie for two things, to see The Rock kicking some ass, and to see some action scenes. This is where the movie gets good, all of the action scenes (whether over the top of suspenseful) are brilliant. I also really liked the balance between the scenes, one moment we could be seeing The Rock climbing around the tallest building on the planet with duck tape to hold him to the glass. I know sounds utter nonsense. The next we could be seeing a really well done suspenseful moment where he falls from the building with only his leg left attached to the rope, with the camera panning down to the city so we see just how high this building is. Moments like this were extremely well done, I give props to the movie for just a brief second giving me a sense of Acrophobia.
Skyscraper is complete nonsense and you will only find enjoyment if you don't think at all into the logic of things. Dwayne Johnson is entertaining as always, you can see how much fun he’s having in the role, much like you can in most of his roles. The action is brilliant and sometimes can be genuinely suspenseful. Sadly, this is as cliche as movies can get. Everything is by the numbers and nothing is unexpected. This is a very enjoyable movie but one I will slowly forget over time.
