Skyscraper Review – Spoiler Free
Skyscraper is this week’s big action blockbuster film release and it comes directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber who some may know as the director of Central Intelligence (2016). The film stars Dwayne Johnson, Neve Campbell, Pablo Schreiber, Chin Han, Hannah Quinlivan and Byron Mann. This film is the second collaboration between Rawson Marshall Thurber and Dwayne Johnson having both worked together during the making of Central Intelligence.
After seeing a few of the initial trailers for Skyscraper, I wouldn’t say that it’s a film that has necessarily been on my must watch list for this year. But seeing that Dwayne Johnson was in it meant that it was something I was interested in going along to see this as his recent releases have been quite entertaining. I very much enjoyed Jumanji and Rampage, so I was looking for a little of the same experience. Unfortunately though, I have to say that I don’t think that Skycscraper is as good as those two films.
Where Skyscraper is different to the previous Dwayne Johnson movies is that it’s just not as funny as the previous two. The previous two releases were more action comedy films whereas this one leans towards being more of an action film, although does try to have a bit of humour in there but it doesn’t seem to be the main focus. There are times as well where I believe that things are supposed to be serious, but for some reason they’re funny and I’m never sure if this is a good thing in a film.
There are some parts of Skyscraper which are good. The film tries to give Dwayne Johnson’s character, Will, a little bit of a backstory. The main thing about his backstory that you need to know is that he was in the army and one day when he went out on a mission he got blown up and now he’s only got one leg. Now I don’t mind this backstory, but the film is literally about a person who jumps, runs and climbs the biggest building in the world in order to save his family and fight off some bad guys who are trying to bring the building down. These things would be hard for anyone with two legs to legs to do and this character is doing it all with just one! There are some moments where it works and other where it doesn’t. It just becomes a little hard to believe and coming out of the film, I’ve come to think that it’s all quite silly. Which is weird because I was perfectly fine watching Dwayne Johnson fight a giant ape and wolf on top of a building and it didn’t bother me one bit (Rampage).
The minor characters in the film could have been done a little better. For example Zhao Long Ji who is the man who built the tower and hired Will to protect it in the film has quite a bit going on and a whole bunch of enemies trying to ruin what he built which is the main premise for everything in this film. But his backstory is told so quickly that we don’t really get to know a few things which could have been very interesting. As a result, I feel that the villains were just your standard villains and not anything all that great.
Where the film does do well though is in its action sequences. This is really the main reason you’re going to want to see Skyscraper. Even though the narrative and the characters weren’t all that interesting, I managed not to become bored at all during the film as seeing Dwayne Johnson fight, run, jump and climb this massive skyscraper was actually very entertaining. The special effects and the overall design of the sets were all great. For action movie people out there this film won’t really let you down at all in that area.
Overall Skyscraper is an okay film to go and see this weekend. But as an action film out this week it might not be the strongest one out there to choose from and if you’re tossing up between seeing either this, Ant-Man or Jurassic World then the other two films are probably the better choice this week. But if you’ve already seen those two films and still wonder if you should go along to see Skyscraper, I can tell you that it will deliver what you want on the action side, just be prepared going in that you aren’t really going to get the best story out there. Dwayne Johnson fans will likely really enjoy Skyscraper and the actor does well everywhere in the film, it just turns out that his last two films from him were possibly just too good to beat.
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