IT HAS been said many times that there are no new movie ideas coming out of Hollywood.
Case in point: “Skyscraper,” starring the only remaining major action star of this decade (forget about Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger who are well into their 70s)—former WWE Superstar Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson who has carved out his own little slice of the American dream.
But what he presents to us here in “Skyscraper” is a barely “phoned in performance.”
Table scraps fit for a dog.
Here’s the official synopsis:
“Former FBI Hostage Rescue Team leader and U.S. war veteran Will Sawyer (Johnson) now assesses security for skyscrapers. He’s on
assignment in China when he finds the tallest, safest building in the world suddenly ablaze, and he’s been framed for it. A wanted man on the run, Sawyer must find those responsible, clear his name and somehow rescue his family, which is trapped inside the building, above the fire line.”
Actually the building, nicknamed “The Pearl,” is in Hong Kong (still part of China) and is the tallest mixed-use
residential/office complex in the world. It towers over Dubai’s Burj Khalifa at 828 m and is a technological wonder.
Ah, yeah.
Sure.
Enter a bunch of thugs who storm in, kill all of the security officers (sans Johnson) and tracks down the building’s founder to (basically) break into his secret vault and steal stuff.
YAWN.
It gets better—or worse, depending upon how you look at it. Johnson gets chucked out of the Pearl so limping along with his a bionic leg that was attached after an F.B.I. raid many years ago that went bad, he climbs to the top of a nearby construction site located next to the center section of the Pearl, and—wait for it—jumps over and into the Pearl which has been set on fire by the previously mentioned thugs.
Ah, yeah.
Okay, let’s get serious for a moment.
Johnson is a decent enough action hero where Hollywood currently has a dearth of action heroes at the moment. His years in the center ring of WWE proves that he can act and now has a multi-film pedigree to fall back upon. But the story of “Skyscraper” has already been told.
Unfortunately today’s generation of soda-guzzling movie goers would never know about it.
In 1974, “The Towering Inferno” was that generation’s most exciting action movie with the “world’s tallest building” is set on fire. Action heroes Paul Newman and Steve McQueen do their best to save the day as hundreds jump from open windows as chaos reigns.
Fast forward to 1998 and “Die Hard” which serves as a textbook blueprint for “Skyscraper” in which a bunch of thugs enter the Nakatomi Plaza, one of Los Angeles’ tallest buildings to plunder a rich man’s vault. Bruce Willis was in his prime 30 years ago as New York City Police Detective John McClain who gets angry, snarls at the camera (“come out to the coast, we’ll get together, have a few laughs”) and shoots at least of dozen of these afore mentioned thugs and sets the building on fire before saving his wife (Bonnie Bedelia) from sudden death.
This is EXACTLY what happens in “Skyscraper.”
Different venue with Hong Kong instead of Los Angeles and a different building but Johnson—like Willis— goes on a shooting rampage, flexes his biceps more than once and raises his traditional right eyebrow for the camera before saving his wife (Neve Campbell) from sudden death.
Ah, yeah.
“Skyscraper” is a serviceable enough action flick, provided you were wise enough to select that bag of extra-large sweet and salty caramelized popcorn and not its junior replica at the concession stand.
During its two week (or so) run at the major cinemas throughout Cebu, “Skyscraper” will offer plenty of good feelings when Johnson recuses his two cute little bratty kids of whom I wish one of the thugs had just chucked out the 72nd floor window.
Geez were they annoying or what?
Do not take your children to this movie.
“Skyscraper” is extremely violent and although writer/director Rawson Marshall Thurber (“Easy A”) keeps the movie pace humming along, he is also fighting back against what I call the “Dwayne Johnson Movie Fatigue Syndrome.”
Just like Thomas Cruise Mapother IV—Tom Cruise—is in every freaking scene of every freaking movie he makes, Johnson is likewise in nearly every single frame of “Skyscraper” and if I ever have to see another close-up of his bald face leering at the camera, I will tear off my clothes and run screaming naked as a jay bird through the halls of the nearest cineplex like a mad fool.