Skyscraper Review: A Bombastic Assault 21/07/18
I think it was at the moment when Dwayne “Formerly Known As The Rock” Johnson swung upside down from the world’s tallest building, detached his prosthetic leg, climbed up a rope with his hands, launched the prosthetic between two rapidly closing doors allowing him enough space to slide through, before removing said leg, kissing it, and going off on yet another montage focused on duct tape that I not only wondered what I was watching, but why I was watching it.
From Johnson’s own Seven Bucks Productions, and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber of the mystifyingly popular We’re The Millers (2013) and the enjoyable Central Intelligence (2016) comes Skyscraper, a film so over-the-top bombastic I’ll refer to it from here on out as SKYSCRAPER!!!
SKYSCRAPER!!! is what would happen if Die Hard, The Towering Inferno, and Arnold Schwarzenegger had a love child that was then raised in the 1980s, injected with enough steroids to leave its testicles the size of Higgs-Boson particles, and summarily shoved down my throat at the speed of sound.
SKYSCRAPER!!! Is about tough-guy-nice-guy-big-guy Dwayne Johnson who must rescue his family (who he made with his surgeon wife who chopped his leg off after an accident that left him with survivors guilt) from the tallest skyscraper (SKYSCRAPER!!!- that’s where they get the title!) in the world after robbers figure out that the best way to rob it is to set it on fire. A bit like how America though the best way to save itself from...itself was to set it on fire by electing Trump. Or a bit like how Britain thought that since everything was going too well post-economic crash the best way to solve that was by setting itself on fire and voting for Brexit. Or a bit like how...anyway you get the point. Successfully lighting the building up, the bad guys now have to face fire AND Johnson as he MacGyver's his way up the building.
SKYSCRAPER!!! Is full of plot holes and acting that made Alan Rickman’s performance as Hans Gruber look understated and subtle. Johnson is his usually charismatic self and continues to inexplicably refer to himself in the third person as ‘Daddy’ which he does on social media too. I thought about this a lot while watching the film.
SKYSCRAPER!!! Is also full of special effects that are entirely convincing and at one point gave me horrible vertigo. One scene in a Hall Of Mirrors-esque balcony made me wonder what shape Dwayne Johnson would be in one of those warping mirrors, but I couldn’t tell because it was so assaultive on my eyes that I had no idea what was going on, and my sense of the internal geography of the scene was completely fucked by this point.
SKYSCRAPER!!! made me wonder if Seven Bucks Productions is somehow reverting Hollywood to its 'glory days' of mass-produced films that match actors and directors a la the 30s, 40s and 50s. Johnson seems hell-bent on (and fully capable of) dominating the Hollywood box office.
But.
But.
SKYSCRAPER!!! is more of a thrill ride than mother! (2017) was, ramps up the tension better than Speed (1994), and honestly was the most fun I’ve had in the cinema in a while. It is ridiculous, over-the-top beyond belief. It pedals masculine stereotypes of sweat, blood and muscle over all else, and yet I enjoyed it (somewhat). It’s portrayal of disability (while not actually casting a disabled lead) was unique too. Instead of being a character trait, or something to overcome, it was just a fact of life in the film and never did it become something gaudy to watch. At one point, during a fight, the prosthetic leg comes off, and the character simply shifts his fighting style to accommodate the now missing limb. It struck me as progressive, but of course, my voice should not be the one heard in this matter, and so I will direct you to Kristen Lopez’s review at Slashfilm here for a much more nuanced, interesting look at disability in SKYSCRAPER!!!
SKYSCRAPER!!! Was not released in 3D, and I’m glad it wasn’t because I would have died right there and then, and as a rule I only allow assaults on my senses in 2 dimensions, it helps keep me level-headed.
This review is absolutely not an endorsement of the film. Go and see it if you’re into that kind of thing. If you’re not, give it a wide berth, but by god if you write about it use all caps: it’s a spectacle of rippling, sweaty, muscled proportions.
by Jack Buchanan
From Johnson’s own Seven Bucks Productions, and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber of the mystifyingly popular We’re The Millers (2013) and the enjoyable Central Intelligence (2016) comes Skyscraper, a film so over-the-top bombastic I’ll refer to it from here on out as SKYSCRAPER!!!
SKYSCRAPER!!! is what would happen if Die Hard, The Towering Inferno, and Arnold Schwarzenegger had a love child that was then raised in the 1980s, injected with enough steroids to leave its testicles the size of Higgs-Boson particles, and summarily shoved down my throat at the speed of sound.
SKYSCRAPER!!! Is about tough-guy-nice-guy-big-guy Dwayne Johnson who must rescue his family (who he made with his surgeon wife who chopped his leg off after an accident that left him with survivors guilt) from the tallest skyscraper (SKYSCRAPER!!!- that’s where they get the title!) in the world after robbers figure out that the best way to rob it is to set it on fire. A bit like how America though the best way to save itself from...itself was to set it on fire by electing Trump. Or a bit like how Britain thought that since everything was going too well post-economic crash the best way to solve that was by setting itself on fire and voting for Brexit. Or a bit like how...anyway you get the point. Successfully lighting the building up, the bad guys now have to face fire AND Johnson as he MacGyver's his way up the building.
SKYSCRAPER!!! Is full of plot holes and acting that made Alan Rickman’s performance as Hans Gruber look understated and subtle. Johnson is his usually charismatic self and continues to inexplicably refer to himself in the third person as ‘Daddy’ which he does on social media too. I thought about this a lot while watching the film.
SKYSCRAPER!!! Is also full of special effects that are entirely convincing and at one point gave me horrible vertigo. One scene in a Hall Of Mirrors-esque balcony made me wonder what shape Dwayne Johnson would be in one of those warping mirrors, but I couldn’t tell because it was so assaultive on my eyes that I had no idea what was going on, and my sense of the internal geography of the scene was completely fucked by this point.
SKYSCRAPER!!! made me wonder if Seven Bucks Productions is somehow reverting Hollywood to its 'glory days' of mass-produced films that match actors and directors a la the 30s, 40s and 50s. Johnson seems hell-bent on (and fully capable of) dominating the Hollywood box office.
But.
But.
SKYSCRAPER!!! is more of a thrill ride than mother! (2017) was, ramps up the tension better than Speed (1994), and honestly was the most fun I’ve had in the cinema in a while. It is ridiculous, over-the-top beyond belief. It pedals masculine stereotypes of sweat, blood and muscle over all else, and yet I enjoyed it (somewhat). It’s portrayal of disability (while not actually casting a disabled lead) was unique too. Instead of being a character trait, or something to overcome, it was just a fact of life in the film and never did it become something gaudy to watch. At one point, during a fight, the prosthetic leg comes off, and the character simply shifts his fighting style to accommodate the now missing limb. It struck me as progressive, but of course, my voice should not be the one heard in this matter, and so I will direct you to Kristen Lopez’s review at Slashfilm here for a much more nuanced, interesting look at disability in SKYSCRAPER!!!
SKYSCRAPER!!! Was not released in 3D, and I’m glad it wasn’t because I would have died right there and then, and as a rule I only allow assaults on my senses in 2 dimensions, it helps keep me level-headed.
This review is absolutely not an endorsement of the film. Go and see it if you’re into that kind of thing. If you’re not, give it a wide berth, but by god if you write about it use all caps: it’s a spectacle of rippling, sweaty, muscled proportions.
by Jack Buchanan
