Filmic Friday 227: Skyscraper

Die Hard is probably my second favorite Christmas movie after Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, so you may understand why I was kind of annoyed that there's a new movie trying to rip off Die Hard. Even more to my dismay, this movie stars Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who... look. Everyone says he's a nice guy. He's charismatic. He's dynamic. He was a great wrestler. I just... his acting, though. Like, he's funny in Rampage, and I've seen him in other movies where he does an okay job, but... he's no Bruce Willis, is all I'm saying.

Boy oh boy do they want us to believe this will bee like Die Hard...

The Rock is playing a guy who started out as a SWAT dude, but after a horrible (yet morbidly hilarious) incident involving a baddie, some kids, and explosives, he's out of the game.

Also, missing his left leg.

He married the doctor who saved his life (played by  Neve Campbell, who I've missed seeing in movies!), had some kids, and has apparently become some kind of bigshot safety consultant? Regardless, he's in Hong Kong with the wife and kids, living in a ridiculous superstructure called "The Pearl", which he's keeping watch over and reporting on to its owner, a hotshot Chinese billionaire with shady ties to the evil mcbadguys of this movie.

It really is a hilariously ridiculous building.
Complete with holodeck and spinning blades of death...

So The Rock has to go and do some tech stuff, Neve gets basic IT mansplained to her because I guess ace Naval Surgeons don't know how to reboot things? and then he gets handed a McGuffin Tablet that scans his face and gives him way more access than anyone who isn't on the security team should have. Predictably, this is stolen from him because, guess what, one of his old SWAT pals turned on him because he was pretty pissed about getting blown up because The Rock made a bad call.

The stolen tablet is used to shut down the super high-tech fire retardant systems, the bad guys set the building on fire, and Neve and the kids get stuck halfway up the stupid tower of nonsense.

Also, The Rock is wanted by the police for reasons, so he communicates via cellphone.
This comes complete with awful shaky-cam footage of him yakking at them and trying to get them free.

There's a subplot with the Hong Kong police, but that's not important. There's a subplot with a scary Chinese Assassin lady who I can't help but think of as Ada Wong, but this is also unimportant. The only really important plot thread is that Bigshot Billionaire dude double-crossed some Very Bad People, so now a crazy Scandanavian is burning down his big weird building.

Also, the Rock gets captured. More than once.

The Rock has to use his fake leg and his wits to John McLain his way through the Pearl so that he can, initially, try to rescue his family, and then get the files the bad guys want so they won't kill his daughter. Neve and the son escape in a ridiculous elevator scene.

Remember when I mentioned the Holodeck? Yeah, predictably, that's where the thrilling climax occurs.

In this ridiculous baseball on the roof, there are a bunch of LED screens.
This is shown to either reflect you like dozens of bad funhouse mirrors
or to show you an unobstructed all-around view of Hong Kong.
How you make that kind of aerial view of Hong Kong visually uninteresting is a mystery to me, but they managed.

Now, I'm kind of crapping on this movie, but I actually really liked it. I thought Neve was great, and bless her, she's trying to work with The Rock, who is, of course, The Rock throughout. I thought the Chinese actors were great. The child actors were pretty great, too. I thought the focus on The Rock's prosthetic was pretty cool. As far as it being a big, dumb action movie, it's very successful.

That is the intense look of a man who cannot decide whether it's Poontang Pie time
or People's Elbow time.
It's neither. It's get the heck outta Dodge time.

If you're going to watch Skyscraper, definitely do so with company, so you can all look at each other and say "No... that's not what's going to happen, is it? OMG, it totally happened! Yes!" repeatedly while hooting and hollering. This is absolutely a pizza and sugary beverages kind of film, and I think I'd watch it again if it was with friends.

I am a sucker for physically impossible movies with silly premises, after all...

So if you're looking for your next Bad Film Night offering, maybe give Skyscraper a shot? I haven't given away the juicy bits, the hamminess of the actors, or the twists you'll see coming a mile away, so there will be a lot of virgin(ish) territory for you to cover!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC