Skyscraper - A RMNT Review

Skyscraper is the latest film from Universal Pictures, with Rawson Marshall Thurber as both director and scriptwriter, and stars Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in the leading role, marking as their second collaboration after Central Intelligence from 2016. Having seen the first trailer a few months back, I was astounded by how ridiculously similar it was to one of my favorite films, Die Hard, along with another classic film, The Towering Inferno, from its plot and premise, giving me a strong feeling that this’ll bomb badly in theaters. So yesterday, I went to see it after Hotel Transylvania 3, and I’m glad to have saved this one for last!

The film takes place in Hong Kong where Will Sawyer (played by Dwayne Johnson), a former FBI Hostage Rescue Team leader, now working in security consulting, is tasked with inspecting the newly-constructed building "The Pearl", the new tallest building in the world, that’s also the most secured, and in which the plot will soon occur. Right off the bat, you can immediately see that it’s main events are ripped straight out of Die Hard and The Towering Inferno, from its setup of criminals taking over a towering building, the roaring fire that's spreading rapidly on a tall building, and even having the main character doing nearly some of the things that John McClane has done! Despite this being an unoriginal film consistent of recycled elements from two better made films, I'm very surprised to say that I really enjoyed the film based on how it’s shown. I don't know how, but whatever Thurber did, he somehow made this movie work. Due to how much you care for Sawyer in saving his family from the situation at hand, it makes the suspenseful moments all the more engaging, that and the small touches of chuckle-worthy moments, mostly provided by Dwayne's charismatic performance. I have to commend the director for at least making this very entertaining.

Usually, in a movie such as this, you'd expect to find one-dimensional and clichéd characters that you wouldn't give a damn, when its actually the complete opposite, the cast actually give out very decent performances. Like I said before, Dwayne Johnson once again delivers another charismatic performance as Will Sawyer, who's main goal in the film is to rescue his wife and two children since they're everything to him after losing his leg from an explosion during a hostage situation back in his previous FBI career ten years back. While we clearly know that he'll succeed in accomplish his objective in the end, but due to the dangerous and out of control situations that occurs during the film, you can't help but root for him in succeeding. Speaking of his goal, the characterization of Sawyer's family are a true breath of fresh air, not just from the genuine performances of Neve Campbell as Sarah (Sawyer's wife), McKenna Roberts as Georgia (Sawyer's daughter) and Noah Cottrell as Henry (Sawyer's son), but for how they carefully work their way out of the situation during the disaster without making dumb mistakes along the way. Also, without spoiling, let's just say that for once after years of seeing the cliché of the main character's wife always being captured by the main villain time and time again, Sarah herself turns the tables on that aspect! The film's main antagonist, terrorist kingpin Kores Botha (played by Danish actor Roland Møller) shows the typical villainous intimidation, strategic smarts, patience, but he's no Hans Gruber by any means. While he does a decent job with the role, the villain himself is nothing special, despite the motivation on why he's burning down "The Pearl". As for the other characters featured in the film, such as the building's rich designer and owner Zhao Long Jr. (played by Chin Han), Ben (Pablo Schreiber) Sawyer's good friend from his FBI days, and Inspector Wu (Byron Mann), they all do good jobs with their roles and bring essential plot elements to the main story, so regardless of some of them getting some small amount of screen time, they at least get lasting impressions in the end.

For a ripoff film, I have to give credit to the production crew for the design of "The Pearl" building, both outside and inside, as it captures the brilliant essence of modern architecture, also, is it just me or does the building look like a giant-sized version of the FIFA World Cup trophy? Anyway, as for the action and stunt work, its quite decent at best and intense in other scenes, but its still ridiculous knowing that Dwayne's character has a prosthetic leg and is still shown to do many physical capabilities like he still has both legs, including the sequence where he jumps from a crane to the side of the building! But then again, I do seem to recall seeing a man with two prosthetic legs compete in the one-hundred meter race back in the last Olympics, so I guess its somewhat plausible. But hey, what do I know? I'm no physician. Either way, I suggest that you get used to this cause you'll be seeing this a lot. Is it ridiculous? Yes, but is it fun? Absolutely!

I really should be hating this film for being such an obvious copy/paste, but Skyscraper proved to be quite an enjoyably entertaining film thanks to its nicely-done action scenes, stunt work, genuine moments of suspense, Dwayne Johnson's leading performance, the main character's family being absolute standouts in their own right, and impressive production work. The film also taught me a very important lesson: duct tape can be your greatest ally, no matter the random situation!

Story: 3 / 5

Characters: 3 / 5

Production: 3.5 / 5

Final rating: 3 / 5