Is The Rock's Latest Movie 'Skyscraper' Any Good? Here's What The Reviews Say
Dwayne Johnson isn't running for President yet — how could he when he needs to carry multiple big-budget summer action movies on his back every year? The latest is "Skyscraper," from writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber ("Central Intelligence"). Johnson stars alongside Neve Campbell in what you can guess is probably 30% a showcase of Johnson defying physics, 20% Johnson monologuing about family as though he were his former "Fast & Furious" co-star, and 50% a rehash of that other action movie set in a tower. Here's what the reviews say:
Yadda Yadda, Johnson Needs To Save His Family From The Giant, Burning Action Movie-Trope Tower
Johnson plays Will Sawyer, who used to be the best damned F.B.I. SWAT agent in all of greater Minnesota before a botched hostage situation in a wintery cabin left a child dead and him without a leg. Now an amputee of still considerable muscle mass, Sawyer has parlayed his skills into private security services on the other side of the globe, heading up the team overseeing the protection of the Pearl, an obscenely wealthy venture capitalist's phallic totem to himself — and whose commercial spaces, penthouses, and 30-story indoor rainforest are all powered with wind energy.
It's all muddled, but the reasons don't matter; it's basically an excuse to put Will in a position where he must single-handedly save his family from the skyscraper, pursued by police who are convinced he started the fire himself. He gets a serious assist from Sarah [Neve Campbell], who knows how to fight back and also, helpfully, can speak Chinese.
[Vox]
Neve Campbell Doesn't Get Totally Sidelined, Thank God
Campbell, as Sarah Sawyer, gets to do more than the wife character in such a movie usually does; rather than the go-get-'em type or the please-don't-go-get-'em! type, she's the I'll-stab-a-motherfucker-with-these-scissors type. Except she can't say that word as she stabs — this is a family film.
It's great to see Campbell as a military surgeon who can also handle herself in a fight. In other words: she has quite a bit to do in this movie. (What a waste it would have been to hire Neve Campbell and waste her talents in this, which we see over and over in similar situations, but thankfully that doesn't happen.)
[UPROXX]
While Thurber gives Campbell a character that's anything but a quivering damsel-in-distress – this woman kicks ass with the best of them, and it's genuinely great to see the "Scream" star back onscreen – he's also the sort of director who mistakes cut-up chaos for fight scenes and sound and fury for actual set pieces.
Some Parts Look Good, Some CG-Heavy Bits Not So Much
"Skyscraper" is more stylish than one would expect from the director of "Central Intelligence" and "We're The Millers." (The cinematographer is Robert Elswit, who has shot every Paul Thomas Anderson film except "The Master" and "Phantom Thread"; more relevantly, he was also the director of photography on "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol," which features the most famous set piece of butt-clenching acrophobia in modern moviedom.)
When Johnson is not fighting gravity and winning, things have a tendency to go from sweaty-palm–inducing to facepalming, especially when the movie starts dropping him into CGI flamescapes and some increasingly one-dimensional digital sequences. (It's one of those FX-heavy epics that somehow feels overblown and super-chintzy at the same time.)
It Rips Off 'Die Hard' Without Doing Enough To Remix It
"Skyscraper" is basically just "Die Hard" in a "Die Hard" movie, with a dash of "The Towering Inferno" and the ending of "Enter the Dragon." Will doesn't lose his shoes, but he does use duct tape to save the day, and he does wind up swinging precariously from a rope on the exterior of the building.
It feels like a dumbed-down, poor man's "Die Hard," despite costing a lot more to make.
'Skyscraper' Skews A Little Too Serious
As conceived by writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber, who previously directed Johnson to arguably his finest performance yet in "Central Intelligence," "Skyscraper" is incurably square about depicting urban catastrophe, eschewing the jocularity of Willis's wisecracks or the self-aware vulgarity of carnage maestro Roland Emmerich's body of work.
The flippest [moment] finds a second-tier villain bursting into a workplace and mowing down rows of innocents at their computers. The filmmakers show us the killer's enraptured face rather than their violated bodies, so this scene — by the logic of the MPAA — is suitable for families. Apparently it's healthier for the kids to see how badass she looks perpetrating a mass shooting than to face the horror she's unleashed.
This is a vastly more straightforward film than anything else he's directed; not that changing things up is bad, but considering how goofy so much of the setup of "Skyscraper" is, a bit more levity would have been welcome. (And again: since both Thurber and Johnson worked on "Central Intelligence," we know they can be funny together.)
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Even Johnson Appears To Be Weirdly Subdued In It
Johnson's performance simply comes off as humorless in a movie that keeps getting inherently more ridiculous. Right note, wrong song. This is the sort of thing that requires classic Rock, not an experimental but-what-if-I-maybe-acted-like-this-was-"Sophie's-Choice"? Rock.
"Skyscraper" contains a few glimmers of a serious, haunted performance — Johnson is playing the walking wounded, after all — that for a second or two made me wish for a more contemplative Johnson vehicle. He's done the work of ingratiating himself to us with all his improbable physical wit; maybe now it's time he had the opportunity to take us somewhere new. But, nah.
Gone are the days of "Southland Tales," when an ambitious Rock on the rise seemed to display a pure desire to explore riskier projects; these days, he gives ambivalent audiences what they want.
"Skyscraper" downplays one of the main reasons we go to see an action movie starring The Rock. As a result, our beloved pro wrestler turned movie star feels a little miscast, even as he gets to once again assume his favorite role as the ultimate superdad.
Still, If You Don't Expect Much, 'Skyscraper' Is Just Fine
"Skyscraper" could have been ridiculous fun! Or, it could have gone full-on '70s era dramatic disaster movie. Instead, it's somewhere in the middle and just kind of flounders.
[UPROXX]
"Skyscraper" plays out like a metaphor for diminishing returns — Johnson keeps climbing, higher and higher, until there's nowhere left to go but down.
Will, in the end, is not a movie character; he's the protagonist of a video game, the sort without much character development or moral inquiry. He's a standard-issue American hero. We're there to watch him do crazy stuff, and he delivers. Just don't think too hard, or it might start to fall apart.
[Vox]
TL;DR
There's nothing wrong with a movie using "Die Hard" as its template; other solid action movies such as "Speed" and "Air Force One" have done so. But Skyscraper fails to elevate itself above the basic premise of "What if 'Die Hard,' but with Dwayne Johnson?"
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