Have you ever wondered what Die Hard would be like if Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was in it?
If this applies to you then Skyscraper is definitely your kind of movie.
Directed by Rawson Marshall Thuber, Skyscraper stars The Rock as Will Sawyer a government agent turned security consultant and family man after a horrific accident amputated his leg.
After Sawyer’s family is trapped in the world’s tallest Skyscraper, The Pearl, with terrorists hoping to get something from its creator Zhao Long Ji (Chin Han), its up to Sawyer to rescue them and stop the terrorists.
Skyscraper is nothing new as it heavily takes influence from Die Hard and a bunch of its imitators.
However, if anything the film seems to embrace its Die Hard influence based on that poster.
That being said, even though I could not watch this movie without thinking of Die Hard, Skyscraper is still an enjoyable action flick with quite a few entertaining set pieces.
The acting is solid with The Rock once again turning in a likable performance and his character’s wife (Neve Campbell) and their children are also well acted.
These characters’ likability is enhanced by the action they are involved in with the final action sequence being particularly entertaining through how its environment was utilized.
The action even made me like the minor characters as well.
The body guard Ajani Okeke (Adriam Holmes) for example, was a minor character but one of the things he did during this movie was very heroic and made me like his character, even with he had very limited screen time.
However, even though the characters were likeable and some of the action was pretty entertaining, this film just could not escape its Die Hard influence.
On top of this, some elements of the film did not make that much sense.
(Minor spoilers here) For example, people were cheering on Sawyer during his heroic efforts in the movie but at that point the media was stating he was involved in the terrorist attack so it did not make sense for the crowds to be cheering him on.
Still Skyscraper was an enjoyable film despite its problems.
You will have fun with it but will have a hard time separating it from Die Hard.
THE REVIEW MONSTER 