Film of the Week: Skyscraper

Unfortunately, about half way through, I found myself not paying much attention to the film, almost forcing to finish it. It’s formulaic. San Andreas, also staring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, was about a natural disaster beyond anyone’s control and Dwayne’s character has to fight through the city to rescue his family. Skyscraper was about a man-made disaster and Dwayne’s character has to fight through a burning skyscraper to rescue his family. It gives the impression of copying and pasting, tweaking a few things and then the writers are free to head down to the pub for the evening.

I discussed how Rampage was a good summer blockbuster, how it ticks all the right boxes even though the core structure is no different to most other summer blockbusters. Well, Skyscraper didn’t even try to build upon that core structure; they just left it as generic man rescuing generic family.

It had poor attempts at humour, and at one point tried to be self-aware when Dwayne’s character noted how stupid his plan he was about to act upon was, which failed miserably.

Rather regrettably I wouldn’t recommend Skyscraper, and I used the word “regrettably”, because I did have good hopes for this film. I was sucked into the grandness of the trailer. It showed us epic scenes, teased action packed sequences – but neither were delivered. Dwayne Johnson has a few summer blockbusters under his belt, so it makes sense that at least one of them is going to be a dud. It’s a shame it’s this one, but the writers didn’t exactly help themselves when constructing the story.

Summer blockbusters aren’t supposed to be anything other than an action packed scene after action packed scene, with a barely visible story, with characters that hardly develop, and everyone is affected but most of the time the main character lives, and he completes his mission and moves on from that point forward. I understood it wasn’t going to be the greatest film of all time – I was fully expecting to get what was shown, and that’s it, nothing more, and nothing less, but it could have been a bit better.

There is one particular aspect of the film which was done well and built upon, to make it appear different from other action sequences. Dwayne’s character is an amputee. It was shown how he lost his leg, and it showed him having to deal with his leg, but then nothing else afterward. I can understand why they didn’t focus on the leg too much – to show that it’s a sensitive subject and he wants to continue with his life as normal as possible. Unfortunately, the rest of the film doesn’t help that element. The entire film feels lazily put together, and so the scenes with the leg feels lazily placed in.

At least Dwayne’s character didn’t make a comment about how huge his muscles are, or how tall he is, or anyone else make a passing reference to how strong he is, which has featured in almost every single film he’s been in. Although, if you count the scene when he climbed up an entire crane by himself as a reference, then at least they’re doing something original with the joke.

I wouldn’t personally say it’s a good film, but I can see the entertainment value within for some, and it does give the impression of being a popcorn movie to make the night fly away.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)