The Partially Educated Review
Turns out it is possible for a film to be generic in an aggressive
kind of way; as if to leave you affronted by it's very averageness. I
left a recent of Skyscraper feeling as though I'd been beaten
about the head with a baseball bat made entirely of mediocrity.
Honestly, I may have spent the rest of the day in complete
despondency had it not been for the excitement of the Chinese that
followed it.
Skyscraper is never a bad
film. It's just one that's quite clearly designed to pull punters in
for yet more of Dwayne Johnson's action frolics. That in itself would
be fine if it weren't for the fact that we're dealing with serious
Dwayne; the one that bored us through the likes of Faster
and Snitch. Johnson
isn't meant to be serious and films always die when he's in that
mode. At least with the aforementioned two, the subject matter
dictated it. Here though, there really isn't any excuse for the
barren wasteland of humour we're presented with when the concept
would call for one-liners galore.
The plot is rudimentary. Johnson plays Will Sawyer; a security
advisor on the largest skyscraper in existence. When terrorists take
over it and set fire to the bajillionth floor, not only is he framed
for this, but must also find a way to save his family in the
penthouse suite.
Within the first 5 minutes, Johnson survives an explosion of such
close proximity that it should by rights have made the walls into a
Jackson Pollock made entirely of his innards, but instead he just
loses a leg. Honestly, they could have called the character Manfred
Manimal McMannfromuncle and they'd have still been underplaying the
manliness.
Perhaps that would have yielded some interest to the film; an obvious
vulnerability would be something that I can't recall Johnson playing
before. Instead, it becomes a source for set-pieces or one of the
film's annoyingly few jokes. Outside of that, he's still just The
Rock.
Surely it's not just Dwayne though. There must be other things to
discuss, but there really isn't. The villains are all generic
terrorist types of varying European descent. The cops on the outside
all display the sort of investigative intuition that you'd expect
from a hedgehog taking an up close peek at a nearby motorway. His
family are presented as a nice family that you definitely want to see
survive and boast our only other recognisable presence in Neve
Campbell (though some would potentially recognise Noah Taylor as well
if it weren't for the fact that he doesn't stop gurning).
It's not that Skyscraper is an entirely negative film. Some
well-shot sequences may genuinely put the shivers into vertigo
sufferers. While I'm not one of those, I do have a slightly weird
affliction where I get pins and needles in my left foot when I see
someone come perilously close to dropping from a great height. It's
safe to say that same foot hurt a little after this film. You don't
create that without some competence, but director Rawson Marshall
Thurber demonstrates little ability for creating any sort of action
surprises. I'd say he should stick to comedy, but honestly, the guy's
been coasting off the fact he made Dodgeball for far too long
now. Still though, worth a reminder...
In the end, Skyscraper feels like the sort of film that would
be created for the textbook How To Write An Action Film. If
they came up with something great, they wouldn't use it for the
textbook. So why did they commit the entirely ordinary idea to film?
FOUR out of 10
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