Skyscraper (2018)

Part disaster movie, part action movie, Skyscraper is probably best described as simply a Dwayne Johnson movie. It's dumb fun. Yet it's another mis-step for Johnson, with a bit too much of the dumb and not enough of the fun parts, hopefully serving as a reminder to the hulking star that he shouldn't rely on these vehicles to keep him ranked as high as he currently is (in terms of box office and all-round likability).

Johnson plays a security expert named Will Sawyer. He has a family that he loves, a new job that places him in the biggest skyscraper in the world, and an injury that has left him with one leg (the other being a prosthetic). He's also about to have a major headache when the skyscraper is taken over by some rent-a-villains, the top section is set ablaze, and he can only look on from afar as he realises learns that his family are trapped inside and he has no easy way to get back to them. But this is Dwayne Johnson, dammit, so you know he's going to find a way.

Written and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber, who has a background steeped in comedy and used Johnson so well in Central Intelligence, Skyscraper is riffing on a few very famous action thrillers that take place in very tall buildings. I'm not going to namecheck them, simply because I feel petty enough to refuse to place their names in any context alongside this film. It's the epitome of a hollow blockbuster, with very few things to care about in between the explosions and fights.

Neve Campbell plays Sarah Sawyer, and she gets a couple of decent moments, but she's the only other adult character worth a damn. Oh sure, nobody wants to see the kids in too much peril, but you could say that about most kids. The two here are perfectly fine in roles that could have been played by any one of thousands of eligibile contenders. At least I remember them more than ANY of the other people who are going about onscreen not being Johnson. Chin Han, Roland Moller, Noah Taylor (okay, I always like seeing him in movies), Byron Mann, Pablo Schreiber, Hannah Quinlivan (so close to being good if she was given some better material), Adrian Holmes, and Elfina Luk are the main people that you're unlikely to remember when you see them in other movie roles.

It's not really the fault of the cast. I lay the blame squarely at the feet of Thurber. His script is weak, even for something that aims to be simple and bombastic. You hear some of the dialogue in the first few scenes and know who is going to turn out to be a villain, you are shown some tech in the building and know it's just going to come into play later on in the movie, you get something cold and stale at every step of the way, which is majorly disappointing. There are better ways to play with this kind of material, dumb fun doesn't have to be so lazy and obvious, but Thurber somehow thinks that he's done a good enough job for the intended audience. He hasn't.

And here's my almost inevitable grace note on which I end things. There's still just enough to make this an average time-waster, as opposed to a painfully bad experience. The charisma of Johnson alone adds a point or two, and there are a few excellent moments that have him trying to stay alive without succumbing to the constant pull of gravity. But who would have thought that this would be the weakest action film starring Johnson in a year that also saw him headline Rampage? Anybody? Yeah, me neither.

5/10

You can buy it here.
Americans can buy it here.