I’ve said it a million times, I’ll watch anything with Dwayne Johnson in it, but can he start doing better movies please and thank you.
Fun fact, someone took this photo to a scientist to see if he in fact would make this leap of faith. Guess what? Turns out he would plummet to his death, and that’s not even the most unbelievable thing that occurs in this generic blockbuster. Rawson Marshall Thurber the man who brought us Dodgeball and Central Intelligence brings us this cheap Diehard knock off, that is pretty painful to be perfectly honest. It’s been 30 years since one of the greatest action movies ever released came to theatres and this is by no stretch of the imagination an homage to that. But it fails miserably in every aspect of doing so. Skyscraper has a pretty straightforward premise. Man’s family is trapped in worlds tallest building, man must climb his way to the top. Simple enough, yet the movie trips over itself time and time again. This movie wanted to be Diehard so badly, the marketing team fully invested into that notion and produced replica posters for this movie in honour of Diehard and The Towering Inferno. Walking into the theatre thinking we could have a little Diehard on our hands was a fun treat, instead we got the worst of the worst when it comes to the Diehard franchise, and nobody and I mean nobody wants that.
It’s really hard to get behind a movie, when you know the whole point of the movie, “The Pearl” the worlds tallest building in Hong Kong was made in an editing room after the movie was done filming. As the movie chugs along it got harder and harder to believe anything I was watching. The whole movie feels green-screened and nothing felt real. When that occurs it’s very hard to buy into what you’re watching. It doesn’t make for a enjoyable movie going experience. If you can’t believe what’s going on in front of you, it’s really hard to stay focused throughout. It’s just another run of the mill disaster flick, which happens to star the most likeable movie star on the planet. I was hoping that if this movie did turn out to be a pile of fiery rubble, then at least I would get to see Dwayne Johnson kick some ass for 90 mins. NOPE. That doesn’t even happen, I was stunned that we didn’t get more action, because well, the worlds biggest action star is in the movie. The action is so weak and bloodless, where Diehard was the polar opposite. He’s never really trying to survive from the people inside the building. He is trying to survive from the building itself. So instead they have him doing things that are so preposterous, it leaves you shaking your head. But I’ll reiterate that the only thing this movie has going for it is well Dwayne Johnson and Neve Campbell. YES! The return of Sydney Prescott baby. I forgot just how wonderful Neve Campbell is and why it bothers me so much that she really doesn’t act anymore. It really bothers me that she decided this would be her triumphant comeback, because although she is great, the movie is not.
Everyone else just gets lost in the shuffle as the film plays out. You’re going to try and make Diehard for this generation but you don’t want to at least attempt to have an iconic villain? Hans Gruber is one of cinemas greatest foes, and the late Alan Rickman did a wonderful job in that role. I had to go look up the name of the bad guy for SkyScraper because that’s just how generic he was. Roland Moller plays Kores Botha, muscle for hire essentially and for me it just didn’t work. There are just so many forgettable characters floating around and you know all the twists and turns 20 minutes before they even happen. Even the bad guys plot is so mind numbingly dumb, by the end of the movie you forget why he is even doing this in the first place. Screen writing in big Hollywood blockbusters is dead. There is not one iconic line of dialogue in this whole thing, which was a total bummer. Everyone knows at least a fine lines from Diehard, that’s what made it so great. You’re telling me, that you have Dwayne Johnson in a movie like this and you can’t have him say one cool line? Who are getting to write these things nowadays? Is it monkeys using type writers? Did the Simpsons predict that as well?
This is just the definition of watered down Hollywood generic action. No one will be talking about SkyScraper in a few weeks, no one will be talking about this movie at all. I just didn’t buy a single moment of the film, because it was all to fake to me. This whole movie was put together in the editing room and that’s by far the biggest weakness of it. DJ is fine in this role, but it’s certainly not one of his best performances, and he can do so much better. It’s just hard to get behind a movie, where it wants you to throw everything you know about what a human being can do out the window and quite frankly I just don’t think the studio cared all that much. We deserve better movies than this. It’s the middle of July right now and every summer blockbuster that has come out since Infinity War has been hot garbage. Lazy writing, sub-par acting and a film where nothing is believable is not a recipe for success. I expected so much more, I wanted to be reminded of Diehard, yet everything in this movie is a total ripoff of something that has come before it. There really isn’t one original idea to be had in the whole thing.
Nate’s Movie Tour Reviews – SkyScraper = 45/100
