Skyscraper (2018)
Cast
- Dwayne Johnson as Will Sawyer
- Neve Campbell as Sarah Sawyer
- Pablo Schreiber as Ben
- Adrian Holmes as Ajani Okeke
- Roland Møller as Kores Botha
- Chin Han as Zhao Long Zhi
- Hannah Quinlivan as Xia
- Byron Mann as Inspector Wu
Director
- Rawson Thurber
Writer
- Rawson Marshall Thurber
Cinematographer
- Robert Elswit
Editor
- Michael L. Sale
- Julian Clarke
Composer
- Steve Jablonsky
Action, Drama, Thriller
109 minutes
The signature promotional image of “Skyscraper,” the latest Dwayne Johnson
summer extravaganza, features the charismatic blockbuster star hanging
from a soaring building by only his left hand. His wedding ring gleams
prominently in the foreground, illuminated by the deadly blaze that’s
raging all around him.
The ring draws our attention as powerfully as the earnest intensity in his eyes, a reminder that—not unlike the “Fast & Furious”
franchise in which Johnson figures so prominently—this story is all
about #family. Mainly, though, it’s a mindless mash-up of “Die Hard” and “The Towering Inferno”:
just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just
lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over.
It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in
terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?
But writer/director Rawson Marshall Thurber
has attempted the problematic combination of making you feel good about
bravery and resilience while also making you feel nothing about the
countless bodies that get blown to bits in a hail of automatic gunfire.
Many, many people die needlessly in this PG-13 spectacle in the name of
thrills, maybe? Character development? The international cadre of
criminals who take over a Hong Kong high-rise – the tallest structure in
the world, three times the size of the Empire State Building – are
clearly, singularly bad. Having them burst into people’s offices and
obliterate them entirely—while the camera steers away from the
bloodshed, per MPAA guidelines—feels gratuitous.
You’re not here
to think, though. You’re here to have fun, and “Skyscraper” does indeed
provide that in its many dizzying and death-defying action sequences.
It’s the connective tissue between the daring stunts that’s flimsy.
But
first: a flashback to 10 years ago. Johnson’s Will Sawyer is a highly
trained Marine and FBI agent who’s in charge of a hostage negotiation
that goes horribly wrong (another instance of placing characters in the
midst of jarring, over-the-top violence). Having lost his left leg below
the knee in that explosive incident, Will now serves as a security
consultant. His latest job has taken him, his wife, Sarah (Neve Campbell), and their twins (McKenna Grace and Noah Cottrell)
to Hong Kong, where he must analyze the safety of The Pearl before it
opens. A shining, self-contained city, stretching 200-plus stories into
the clouds, it’s the brainchild of billionaire Zhao Long Ji (Chin Han).
Characters stand around and provide painfully clunky expository
dialogue, all of which will matter at some point later, detailing the
building’s many high-tech features.
Not for long, though. Thurber
isn’t terribly interested in steadily building tension. “Skyscraper”
kicks into gear pretty quickly and remains relentless. A team of
villains, led by the menacing Kores Botha (Roland Moller), has broken in
with highly flammable chemicals in order to steal the most McGuffiny of
McGuffins. (They shouldn’t even have bothered explaining it, the item
in question is so disproportionately insignificant compared to the
mayhem it causes.) But when they torch the joint, they don’t realize
that Will’s wife and kids are still inside one of the residential units.
And as the flames rise higher and higher from what began as a thin,
orange line on the 96th floor, the danger and the insanity climb with them.
Of course, because it’s Johnson playing this character, he’ll do
whatever he must to save them, with each new obstacle that comes his way
presenting a more ridiculous challenge than the last. But what’s novel
about Johnson in this role is that he’s not completely indestructible.
His character uses a prosthetic leg, and the film cleverly uses that as
an asset, not an impediment.
Individual moments certainly stand out, with the staggeringly overqualified Robert Elswit (Paul Thomas Anderson’s
usual cinematographer) placing us in the midst of the fiery madness.
Will’s climb to the top of a 100-story crane and his leap across the
night sky to The Pearl through a broken window is thrillingly staged. So
is his use of duct tape to A) patch up his wounds before B) placing it
on his hands and feet to Spider-Man his way across the glass exterior.
(If you suffer from vertigo or have even the slightest fear of heights,
this may not be the breezy escape you’re looking for this summer.) One
of the more enjoyable parts of “Skyscraper”—and this was also true of
“Die Hard”—is the way it makes us feel as if we’re figuring out the plan
minute by minute alongside the far more capable hero on the screen.
(Although my kid turned to me about three-fourths of the way through the
screening and said: “I have a hard time believing this all happened in
one day.”)
"Skyscraper" also provides a surprisingly solid role
for Campbell; Sarah is never a damsel in distress, but rather a
combat-trained surgeon capable of kicking her own allotment of butt
while also caring for her kids. (She also speaks several Asian
languages, which comes in handy throughout the film.) Imagine if she
were the one tasked with saving the day, and her family, and the entire
building. Now that would truly be thrilling.
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