Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 1 hour, 42 minutes
Director: Rawson Marshall Thurber
Quick Impressions:
I’ve been dying to see this movie for the longest time. From the trailers (which are full of deliberate misdirection, by the way), Skyscraper looks like an inspired mashup of Die Hard and The Towering Inferno with the Rock thrown in for good measure. Am I wrong, or is that the recipe for the perfect summer action movie?
Now, Skyscraper definitely doesn’t have the all-star cast of The Towering Inferno (which is probably a point in its favor) or the wit of Die Hard. In fact, this movie has almost no humor at all, but it’s pretty hard to resist supplying the jokes yourself as you watch. (I, personally, caught myself compiling an ever-growing list of Things This Movie Teaches Us.) The scenario isn’t terribly original (obviously), but the plot does feature some surprising (if needlessly complicated) elements (potentially twists, depending on your own expectations).
What’s really astonishing is that Neve Campbell is there. When’s the last time you could say that about a movie you saw in the theater? Probably the casting director was musing, “Hmm. We need somebody who can improbably remain alive despite repeated, increasingly far-fetched attempts to kill her…I’ve got it!”
(I’m not trying to insult Neve Campbell, by the way. I was glad to see her. I just don’t watch much grown-up TV, so I wasn’t even aware she was on House of Cards until I started trying to figure out where she’s been all this time.)
One thing the movie does need is a more charismatic villain. Die Hard wasn’t all John McClane yelling, “Yippee Ki-yay!” It also introduced the world (or at least the U.S.) to the brilliant Alan Rickman in what was definitely a star-making role. Don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of bad guys hanging around in this building. (I mean, it’s very tall.) But I kept forgetting which one was the main villain (which is not a great testament to his charisma).
But still, even though Skyscraper is unabashedly derivative, a bit lacking in supporting cast, and surprisingly thin on humor, the movie has plenty of heart, high stakes, riveting action, and a compelling lead performance by the Rock that keeps the audience watching, start to finish.
It goes by quickly, done in just over an hour and a half. But our theater padded the runtime with almost thirty minutes of previews, so we still felt like we got our money’s worth.
The Good:
If you’ve never felt inadequate as a parent, then this movie will give you a taste of how the rest of us feel most of the time.
“Our kids are done for if they’re ever trapped in a burning skyscraper,” I thought as I watched. “My husband is afraid of heights, and I can’t do the monkey bars.”
Afterwards, he told me, “That movie convinced me really have to get in better shape if I want to protect my family.”
What’s funny is I see him as being exactly like the Rock right now. I’m Neve Campbell’s character, trying to crawl across an unsteady plank over a cauldron of fire holding my son unsteadily on my back. That’s like a visual metaphor for how I experience daily life. A trip to the playground often feels like that to me, especially if someone is coughing near us or adults try to engage me in conversation. I am in full panic mode about ninety-five percent of the time. Then my husband comes in with his calming presence, says stuff like, “Try turning it off and rebooting it,” and saves me from myself.
Of course, I’m rarely literally on fire. The arduous stuff the Rock and Neve Campbell go through in this movie just to be good parents puts the rest of us to shame. Seriously, clips of their bravery should be shown before administering whatever replaced the Presidential Fitness Test.
Imagine it. Somebody whines, “When will we ever need to do pull ups as adults?” And the gym teacher responds smoothly, “Let me show you this edifying clip from the movie Skyscraper.“
One kind of delightful aspect of Skyscraper is that Campbell’s character, Sarah Sawyer, is a Navy surgeon who clearly had combat training. While her husband Will (Dwayne Johnson) is busy trying to rescue her, she’s capably fending off all sorts of attacks by herself. With her medical training, she knows just what to do in case of fire or asthma attack. (Good thing, because movies have shown us that if you have children trapped in a situation of life threatening peril, one of them is going to need an inhaler.) And in case any bad guys attack, this former Navy surgeon knows exactly where to stab them.
As a mother, I did not envy what this woman is tasked with one bit, but in a way, I think Sarah’s storyline in this movie is a metaphor for motherhood in general. As my husband pointed out afterwards, “This movie is really good at ratcheting up the tension.” And it is. Things just keep getting worse and worse and worse as the stakes climb as high as the building.
Now when you ask a mother of young children, “How was your trip to the zoo?” how likely is she to answer, “It was lovely and perfect!”?
Usually the answer is more likely to be, “Well, first my son ate some weird candy that made him throw up, so we went home to get his allergy medicine, but then the building caught on fire…”
I don’t want to spoil the movie by listing everything that happens. But if you did write out every single thing that happens to Sarah, you could post it on a forum for mothers, and within five minutes you’d have a hundred comments from other moms saying their day was just like that (or so much worse). “I remember the first time I got strangled with a seat belt…”
But I’ve been thinking small. Sarah’s story may be a metaphor for motherhood, but Will’s story is also a metaphor for fatherhood. Basically the whole movie is a dramatization of what it feels like to be a parent. (In Die Hard, John is intent on rescuing Holly. Here both parents are working desperately to save their children and each other.)
At the heart of the story, we have this obscenely high building that houses all sorts of wonders, a Titanic of the sky, tempting man and acts of God alike. But basically The Pearl is just life once you become responsible for someone else. Suddenly, the floor is pulled out from under you, and you realize you’re at the very top, looking down. But that feeling of being God of your own microcosm is not empowering. It’s terrifying because you know you’re not God, and yet all those tiny people are depending on you. And suddenly life becomes more complicated…and more complicated…and more complicated…and more complicated…and more complicated…until suddenly you’re on the 600th floor jumping out of an exploding turbine and hanging on by your prosthetic leg, and asking yourself, “Wait, why am I doing this again?”
As a metaphor for parenthood (or maybe even just adult life) Skyscraper actually works really well. The threat level just becomes increasingly intense and crazy as peril is compounded, danger upon danger, upon danger. It’s insane. And yet, life is like that, isn’t it?
The movie has some other good elements, too. Inspector Wu (well played by Byron Mann) is like a breath of fresh air, an action movie police officer who is in charge and acts wisely. In Die Hard, McClane has one friend on the ground. Reginald VelJohnson is the only one down there listening and using his brain. All the people in charge are buffoons. Not so in Skyscraper. Inspector Wu is on the case in a flash, making calm, measured statements such as, “I’d like to talk to that man and figure out what is going on.” He’s smart, cautious, strong, insightful. And you watch and say to yourself, “I see why he’s in charge. He’s good at doing his job.” He’s always eager to de-escalate and evaluate. (In fact, Will is the one who looks crazy and impractical, which makes sense given the desperate nature of his situation.) Honestly, I think I might watch an Inspector Wu spin off. It would be a funny premise for a series. In each installment, some random stranger from another country is behaving in a crazy way near the scene of some disaster or crime, and it’s up to Inspector Wu to figure out why.
Hannah Quinlivan is also really good as the super cool Xia, a villain we needed to see more. I love Quinlivan’s performance, the way she makes her hair a part of her character and her lithe (sometimes unnecessary) acrobatics. Xia never walks if she can somersault, and even though she must spend about two hours on her hair every morning (and quite a lot at the salon every couple of weeks), she makes having hair like that look effortless. Maybe Xia’s role should have been enlarged. At the very least, the guys working with her should be as interesting as she is.
Another character I found surprisingly compelling is Mr. Zhao. Chin Han plays the character in a really understated way. (Maybe he’s even too understated, given the acting style of the rest of the cast.) Zhao’s storyline is one of the areas in which the movie is legitimately novel and surprising. Based on the way he behaves throughout, what we finally learn about him is basically a quiet little plot twist (too twisty for some. Some people further down the row kept asking their friend endless questions, trying to sort out the plot well into the end credits.) I won’t spoil anything about Zhao, but I will say that his last lines brought a smirk of surprised delight to my face. That is really not what you’re expecting in a movie with this set up. Normally you get a moment of scolding and chagrin. Mr. Zhao’s like, “What’s wrong with you, audience? This isn’t some Greek myth! Get with the times!”
Best Scene:
Probably the best aspect of this film is the way the crowd gathers to watch (and cheer) all of Will’s exploits on the outside of the building on a giant screen. This seems incredibly realistic and holds a mirror up to the movie theater audience, too.
Best Scene Visually:
The final moment inside “the real Pearl” near the beginning is pretty stimulating to take in. It does invite you to imagine living such an experience, and I began wondering, “Why does something like this not exist already? Someone could make a fortune charging admission.” (Probably it does exist, just not within my social sphere.)
I also like the burning park.
Best Action Sequence:
All of the action sequences in this movie are good. I sometimes find action disorienting, but not here. Most of it is hand-to-hand combat, and scenes of climbing, leaping, and swinging.
I’m a particular fan of Will’s first big fight after he comes to Hong Kong, the moment when he must take down an unexpected assailant.
The seatbelt stuff is pretty good, too.
The Negatives:
This movie needs a stronger villain. I suppose you could argue that the real villain is the one who sets Will up in the first place (which is, to its credit, a complex bit of conflict).
But those guys in the building…They have a leader and everything. I just couldn’t care about him or any of the rest of them. In so many ways, this movie rips off Die Hard. Why not borrow a little more and give us some kind of Hans Gruber?
Granted, I did not guess the villain’s motivations and objectives. (Of course, on the flip side, many vocal people sitting near me did not grasp them even after they were revealed.)
But Xia is a pretty compelling character, why not build up her part? The ultimate cause of all the villains’ scheming is maybe a little too clever to be interesting on screen. We don’t guess it, but then once we find out, we don’t exactly care, either.
Even Will is like, “I’ll come back for you,” but he totally doesn’t (until the threat is removed in another way). For him the story is about his daughter. All the complex machinations explaining why this situation developed are just background noise.
I do think the plot twist is cool and unexpected, but then that leaves a villain vacuum. The situation becomes too realistic and not as much fun.
Think about the lengths this villain went to. He could have achieved his goal in a much simpler way, but clearly he wanted to make a statement, too. I believe that. If one person is arrogant enough to build a zillion foot tower, another will be arrogant enough to destroy it spectacularly. That checks out. But the guy willing to do that should be interesting to watch.
I am also puzzled by the villain’s behavior in the end. Shouldn’t somebody stay with Will to make sure he’s carrying out his objective (or to know when he does)? At the very least they could give him a way to contact them.
And why does Inspector Wu agree to take Sarah with him? It ends up being a real treat for us, but within the realm of the story, why does she need to be there?
There’s an over reliance on duct tape in this movie, for sure, and I think the weak spots in the script are just being held together with duct tape, too. I mean, what is Will doing half the time? The fact that he hardly knows, either, doesn’t totally excuse it. This whole, “See how crazy he’s acting? That proves he’s innocent,” excuse feels extremely flimsy and convenient to me. I also think the script cheats a little in the final showdown.
And maybe this is being too picky, but why does Will Sawyer have an artificial leg? To me, it seems like a way of saying, “Oh, John McClane did it with no shoes? Well, Dwayne Johnson’s going to go it with no legs!” I like the Rock, but he never convinced me that he was actually missing a leg for real. I do believe Will is traumatized by his past. And I believe he loves his family. But I think the leg could have been handled better. It feels really gimmicky and not particularly necessary. I keep thinking of Gregory D. Gadson, one of the (only) highlights of Battleship. I wish we could have seen Will working at a rehab facility alongside an actually injured person. I mean, when you lose a leg, you don’t just fix the artificial limb with duct tape and a hammer and then continue using it with no trouble. Let’s have a bit more realism there, or else remove that element.
Overall:
Skyscraper kept me entertained, start to finish. It’s great escapist summer fun (if by “escapist” you mean that all the characters have to escape). Of course, this movie borrows a lot from other action films (like Die Hard), and fails to add anything really significant or memorable. But it is good, entertaining, exciting, even moving. (No kidding, I cried). I’m glad I saw Skyscraper and relieved I don’t have to live it. I would never make it out alive.