Skyscraper
2 stars
Director: Rawson Marshall Thurber
Stars: Dwayne Johnson, Neve Campbell, Pablo Schreiber
Duration: 102 mins
Class: 15
KRS Releasing Ltd
The skyscraper of the title is the Pearl, a 30-storey-high building, the world’s tallest skyscraper overlooking Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour. At 225 floors and more than 1,000 metres high, it is three times taller than the Empire State Building and is set to house commercial enterprises, entertainment venues and super-luxury apartments… and we must not forget the stupendous, lush and verdant garden that sits halfway up the building. It is a marvel of architecture and technology, the brainchild of billionaire Zhao Long Ji (Chin Han).
The building is about to be inaugurated, pending sign-off by its insurers who in turn await the approval of the building’s security systems by Will Sawyer (Dwayne Johnson).
Will is in Hong Kong for the job with his wife Sarah (Neve Campbell, enhancing a rather one-dimensional damsel-in-distress role by showing off a few decent action moves of her own) and young children Georgia and Henry (the suitably cute McKenna Roberts and Noah Cottrell). However, Sawyer is unwittingly dragged into a plot hatched by Zhao’s enemies, led by the glowering Kores Botha (Roland Moller), who have infiltrated the building and set it on fire – with Sarah and the kids trapped inside.
Skyscraper’s tagline should read The Diehard Dwayne Johnson fights an Inferno in the Towering Pearl, given it is more than a nod to 1974’s The Towering Inferno, arguably the film that spawned the disaster movie genre. And it is also obviously a homage (a polite way of calling it a rip-off) to 1988’s Die Hard – though you can’t technically call it Die Hard in a Skyscraper, because Die Hard itself was set in a skyscraper.
More than a nod to Towering Inferno and an homage to Die Hard
It is impossible to ignore the blatant similarities between the Bruce Willis classic (which just turned 30) and Skyscraper’s script, written and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber. To wit: the lone hero has to outwit a small, well-equipped and fully-armed gang of terrorists while striving to find and save his family trapped in the skyscraper under siege.
The criminals are led by a villain sporting a dodgy, bog-standard East European accent, yet showing none of the charisma of Alan Rickman’s sublime Hans Gruber. And there’s a scene akin to grand larceny which I can’t describe, as it would be too much of a spoiler.
Furthermore, Thurber does not make the most of his lead actor’s considerable talents for, while he inflicts upon him some pretty unbelievable physical trials (more on which below), the character remains sorely underdeveloped.
An opening sequence illustrating Sawyer’s last assignment as an FBI Hostage Rescue Team leader, which goes disastrously awry and in which he loses a leg, leads us to believe he has also lost his nerve. Yet, that does not stop him hurling himself pell-mell into danger without pause.
Truth be told, I could live with that. Yet, crucially, the film lacks the brand of humour the genre thrives on and unwisely takes itself a tad too seriously. So Johnson grunts and groans through his ordeal with nary a droll remark to lighten things up.
That said, the actor has enough physical presence and natural magnetism to overcome the script’s fundamental flaws and frankly ludicrous plot. He is, in fact, The Rock on which the film is built, so all you need do is check your brain in at the door and allow him carry you along through all the film’s żinnati for a couple of hours of preposterous fun. Don’t dwell too much on why the owner of a multi-billion-dollar construction project would hire a security expert who works alone out of a garage to assess said project’s highly complex security and safety features. Just enjoy the thrills as Sawyer climbs up a crane in a matter of minutes to reach the 96th floor of the building – which he then crashes into via a death-defying leap from said crane.
Sometimes, he abseils down the building to reach a security system access panel situated behind the building’s gargantuan wind turbines (don’t ask); or holds up a steel bridge with ropes; he even sends his wife and son to safety by putting them in a lift that hurtles to the ground in freefall… and many such other stories. Just enjoy it for what it is.