Skyscraper: Somer Valley FM Film Review

Welcome back to the Somer Valley FM Film blog, your just in time for the feature presentation. This time we climb the heights of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s new film Skyscraper.

Tasked with assessing its safety, Will Sawyer and his family have been living in the tallest building in the world,”The Pearl”. Chinese billionaire Zhao Long Ji built it in Hong Kong. He used to be an FBI hostage negotiator, but when a mission went wrong, he lost his leg. The vacation is ruined by a criminal gang highjacks the hi-tech tower.

From the plot summary you have figured out what films Skyscraper has been “influenced” by. Right off the bat, you can tell that the elevator pitch was Die Hard plus Towering Inferno plus China. However Skyscraper doesn’t do anything else with its story, Skyscraper has a handicapable main character. But the film does nothing with it; there were times when I forgot he had a prosthetic. Wills relationship with his family does not change, and it could have been a great tale of a father knowing what matters. It doesn’t help that there is some genuinely sloppy spacial awareness in the more close combat action sequences.

There is one element that Skyscraper has going for it that saves it from being just a below average action film with highly implausible architecture. That, of course, is the star, Dwayne Johnson. I have probably said before about how charismatic, and intensely watchable The Rock is, but here his sheer force of personality pulls audiences along, and he sells how much danger he is despite he just being on a green screen.

For what it is Skyscraper is fine. It does its job as an action film that feels tense with a main character that audiences care for. Due to a shallow plot that merely apes the movies that come before it, rather than adding a personal touch, Skyscraper remains stuck at the ground floor.

Hey, thanks for taking the time to read this review. Don’t forget you can listen to the Somer Valley FM Film Review live on Somer Valley FM. Keep checking out the website for more great reviews. Or if you can’t wait, head over to my personal blog Corrupted Records for more thoughts on moving pictures