Skyscraper Review

Skyscraper could and should be much better than it is. All of the elements for a fun summer action movie are here, but they just are combined haphazardly to make for something shockingly unenjoyable. There is a modicum of fun to be had with Skyscraper, Dwayne Johnson remains the best action star on the planet and there are some well done scenes, but this movie is eminently skippable.

Skyscraper looks like straight up Die Hard rip off, but that is only part of what it is. It combines Die Hard with plenty of Jurassic Park. The basic idea is Die Hard, with terrorists in a skyscraper and one man having to work his way through them to save his family. But in Skyscraper, the building is a technological marvel. Viewers are supposed to awed by it like they were when they first saw dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. The building owner is happy to show off his creation, which is brought low by sabotage and then disaster. So not only is The Rock working against the bad guys in the tower, he is also working against the building itself. It isn’t a bad idea, but it mostly just makes the movie feel super busy.

That plays into the movie’s biggest problem; all of its characters are just voids. It has only been a few days, but I can’t remember anyone’s name. Other than loving his family, The Rock’s character is a nonentity. His kids have personalities like “has asthma” and “is girl.” His wife is … also there. The villains get no more development, nor do the cops or the building owner. They all have maybe one trait or more likely just a goal, but there is nothing there to grasp onto.

The Rock does have a handicap, which is an interesting choice. He lost a leg in an explosion, so he wears a prosthetic. It adds a layer of vulnerability to the normally indestructible persona he exudes. In the end, the prosthetic is used as more of an asset than a handicap.

There are some solid action scenes, mostly dealing with The Rock hanging off the side of this very tall building. The less effective scenes happen in the building. Early on the movie sets up a completely unrelated to the building technological marvel whose use in the finale is so blatantly obvious that it is insulting. The building is topped by what is essentially a Star Trek holodeck. It feels like someone took the climax out of a different screenplay because there wasn’t a satisfying conclusion to this one.

Skyscraper is just not good. I can’t fault any of the actors, they are giving it their best. The Rock never appears to be giving less than 110 percent in any movie. But the material here is somehow both too thin and overstuffed. A lot happens in the movie, but since it doesn’t happen to characters someone could care about it feels completely pointless.



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