Writer/director Rawson Marshall Thurber has constructed a perfectly acceptable popcorn film.
When I first saw the trailer for Skyscraper, the 2018 action film starring Dwayne Johnson, I thought it looked like a completely implausible re-imagining of 1988’s Die Hard. With its one-man-army vs. a gaggle of baddies in a skyscraper plot line, what else could I think? Well, it turns out I wasn’t completely correct. It’s implausible, alright, but it’s not quite a Die Hard knock-off.
Johnson plays Will Sawyer, a former SWAT officer turned safety inspector. A friend gets him a gig doing an insurance inspection of The Pearl, the world’s tallest skyscraper. Built in Hong Kong, this 200+ story monstrosity dwarves any other building ever constructed. It features an array of technological bells and whistles, including its own power source and a fully-automated fire control system. (Both of which may come into play later in the film.)
Traveling along with Sawyer are his wife, Sarah (Neve Campbell), and their two kids. They’ve come along to sight-see while Sawyer does the final once over of The Pearl. What no one expects is that crime boss Kores Botha (Roland Moller) has infiltrated the building with a plan to stop the inspection in a not-so-friendly way. What Botha doesn’t expect is that Sawyer’s family is inside the building when his plan commences. And no one messes with Will Sawyer’s family. No one.
Writer/director Rawson Marshall Thurber (Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story) has constructed a perfectly acceptable popcorn film. Skyscraper is the epitome of what passes for a mainstream action film these days: it’s full of computer-generated danger and plenty of in-the-nick-of-time events. The good guys are likable and the bad guys are appropriately slimy. It’s a mindless action film with no aspirations of being anything else. And, if you’re in the mood for that sort of thing, Skyscraper will fit the bill.
3.5 out of 5.0 stars
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