When watching trailers and commercials for this movie, I
realized how much of my trust the Rock has earned. Had there been any other star in the lead, I
probably would not have seen this movie.
I appreciate when a movie is straightforward about what it
is. At no point did this movie attempt
to be any more or less that what it is: action movie set in a giant building
starring the Rock. Period. Will Sawyer is a former S.W.A.T. team (?) member who
lost a leg in an attempt to take down a domestic abuse/hostage taker situation
10 years ago. The doctor who saves him
is Sarah, a naval doctor who eventually becomes his wife. Together they have two children as he moves
into the field of private security.
In present day, Will, Sarah, and the kids are the first to
stay in one of the residential apartments in the top half of a new tower in
Hong Kong called ‘the Pearl’. At 3,500
feet and 225 stories tall, it is the new “World’s Tallest Building”. The owner/designer, Zhao Long Ji, has hired
Will to come in and check the security and safety measures before he opens the
top residential half of the building (apparently the bottom, all stores and
business, has been open for some time).
As Will heads up to the penthouse to give his
final report to the execs, Sarah is taking the kids to see some pandas because
they were given special tickets to a ‘night-feeding’ by Will’s buddy Ben.
Will approves the opening of the top floors and is given in
return a tablet that controls all the security for the building that only his
face can access and is run from an offsite location, which makes little to no
sense. Their son gets sick, so Sarah
brings the kids back early, accidentally running into a ‘maintenance’ crew run
by Kores Botha. He’s there to burn the
building to get something he needs from Zhao.
Apparently Botha works for several powerful crime organizations, all of
which demanded protection money from Zhao when he was building. However, he
tracked all the payments on a special drive, and now Botha needs that drive or
he will be in big trouble with his employers. So his answer is to burn the
building by turning off the safety measures, which he can only do with the
tablet cued to Will’s face at the off-site location. I’m not entirely sure it’s a great plan, but
hey – you have to get the story started somehow.
Since Will was checking in at the off-site location, but
Sarah and the kids are back inside, he has to get back into the building. His
solution is to climb then jump from a super crane next to the building. Once inside, some standard action hijinks
ensue as Will does some climbing, fighting, searching, duct-taping, and
out-smarting to get to Zhao and Botha and save his family.
Writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber is better known for
outlandish comedies (We’re the Millers and Dodgeball), but he also did Central
Intelligence with the Rock, and that chemistry translates here. The action is
entertaining, and the layout of the building is really fascinating, especially
the giant park in the middle and the wind turbines that help it generate its
own power. The cast is good, and does enough to fill in the holes between
action pieces.
- Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson plays Will Sawyer, and makes him believable as a man who is still coping with the mental aspects of the loss of his leg, and more than a little self-doubt about his private security business finally getting a giant client. He would do anything for his family.
- Neve Campbell plays Sarah, and she was pretty great. She surprises the local law enforcement by being fluent in Mandarin, and due to being a naval doctor, can hold her own against a terrorist or two. Honestly, I wanted even more of those moments – she was pretty kick-ass, and got some fight scenes, but I wanted her to beat up more bad guys!
- Pablo Schreiber plays Will’s former teammate and current business hookup. He’s fine, but at no point did I not think he was involved with the plot. Tickets to a panda “night-feeding”? Very suspicious!
- Noah Taylor plays the very shady insurance agent Mr. Pierce, who is also at no point trustworthy. Stop being so obvious about being villains, bad guys!
- Hannah Quinlivan lays Xia, Botha’s number one henchwoman on the ground, who is there to get the tablet unlocked and to the off-site location.
- Roland Moller plays Kores Botha – he’s big and scary, and does a fine job of menacing everything that everyone loves while trying to get what he needs.
- Byron Mann plays Inspector Wu, and I feel like I have complained with several other Rock movies (San Andreas and Rampage) about the underusage of Will Yun Lee – well, here I’m complaining about the underuseage of Byron Mann. He’s wonderful and capable of so much – and unfortunately spends most of this movie staring at computer monitors and TV screens watching whatever Will is up to. He does listen to Sarah once she’s out of the building, but that takes a while.
- Chin Han continues to perfect playing “smug Asian businessman” in this movie as Zhao. He really does love his building, and seems to want to get out from underneath the terrorist thumb he accidentally got under, but something about his performance kept making me think he might be in with the bad guys – all the way to the end.
Overall, the movie was plenty entertaining, and the Rock continues
to use his charm to elevate otherwise average materials. And as for the Die
Hard comparisons – yes, it’s a building that gets overtaken by terrorists, but
really the comparisons are unfair. Die
Hard is the best action movie made and excels for many reasons, but primarily
because of the out-of-placeness of John McClane. He’s a regular dude in the
wrong place at the right time. Here,
Will is a security expert, he knows the building in and out, and is the perfect
person to get in get his family. Skyscraper is not nearly as good, and you’re
better off going in without attempting to compare it. Don’t expect too much
from it, and it won’t let you down.
6 out of 10, a serviceable action flick.
Cast interview;
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