As far as Alpha Males go, Dwayne Johnson would be right up there at the front of line if you did a lineup of all of Hollywood’s leading men over the last decade. Anyone that can still be seen as intimidating dressed as a Tooth Fairy is full regalia has my vote. Regardless of the role, Johnson seems to “Rock out” every time. He’s become almost larger-than-life and movie makers are having to find creative ways to level the playing field, at least for parts of the durations of movies. Johnson’s latest role will pit him against his most massive foe yet, in Skyscraper.
Will Sawyer (Dwayne Johnson) has sacrificed a lot to be where he is today, including losing a leg in an incident gone fatally wrong while he was an agent for the FBI. Years later, Will has reconstructed his life which consists of a lovely wife (Neve Campbell) and two beautiful young children (McKenna Roberts, Noah Cottrell). Self-employed and seeking a life changing opportunity, Will, with the help of an friend and ex-FBI coworker (Pablo Schreiber), has landed a job that should bring him into real legitimacy. Overseeing the safety of the world’s tallest skyscraper is nothing to scoff at.
Zhao Long Ji (Chin Han) has put all of his efforts into this massive structure that will serve as beacon for all the word to see and admire. Behind all of the glitz and glamour, lies a plan to bring this building to fiery fate if terrorists demands are not met. In what becomes a race against time and odds, Will must find a way to rescue his family who is stranded 100 stories up from a raging fire as well as many dangerous men looking to cause as much damage as they can until they get what they came for.
Skyscraper is a movie built on CGI and the broad shoulders of Dwayne Johnson’s massive star power. Everything about the action drama is massive, from the budget, to the fictional structure, to the main star. It’s literally the concept of go big or go home. Director Rawson Marshall Thurber has made his mark in the box office with comedies such as Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004), We’re the Millers (2013) and Central Intelligence (2016). And it is in that last movie that Thurber first worked with Johnson and the pair decided to collaborate once again. This time around, the comedy is more subdued and the action is put on overdrive.
According to Dwayne Johnson, Skyscraper is an original concept and not a remake of any similar type movies that people have rushed to compare it to. Say what you will but, at the very least, either consciously or subconsciously, movies like The Towering Inferno (1974) and Die Hard (1988) had to serve as inspirational pieces. I couldn’t help but to think of this pair of movies as things played out. Another movie that this has ZERO relation to other than its name, is Anna Nicole Smith’s joke of an action thriller Skyscraper released in 1996.
Skyscraper is painfully predictable, terribly transparent and completely over the top. And yet, it’s somehow not a movie that you’ll completely hate. As far as Summer blockbusters go, this will not be one…HOWEVER, there’s enough going on that should keep audiences mildly entertained, kind of like Michael Bay has done with his last 15 Transformers movies. So if you’re looking for something to do that won’t completely blow up in your face, set your expectations much lower than the overly tall building, and take everything in stride because it’s just a movie after all, a movie with zero believability. You can take this pearl for a whirl in theaters right now.
