Skyscraper (2018)

So a couple weeks ago, I decided to go see three films across three days. I have a Cineworld unlimited card, why not? Anyway, on the Saturday I saw 'Incredibles 2', it was a great film, probably prefer the first one but that's not to say the sequel wasn't good, it's a great film. On the Monday, because the car park at home was being repainted, I went to see 'The Secret of Marrowbone'. It was alright, early on it generated a great atmosphere but lost it towards the end, but it was still pretty good. In between them on the Sunday I saw 'Skyscraper'. It was stupid.

Oh, yes, the film which started off looking like a reimagining of 'The Towering Inferno', tried to reimagine 'Die Hard', and in the end had no idea which film it was supposed to be, turned out to be a bit of a mess. Most of the things I want to comment on are spoilers so there'll be a spoiler section.

In 'Skyscraper' we find Will Sawyer (Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson), a former FBI hostage rescue team leader but now runs safety checks on buildings from his garage, (at one point they list a whole bunch of stuff off his resume which really makes his career path strange) is tasked by his former colleague Ben (Pablo Schreiber) to assess the world's newest largest building in the world, The Pearl, owned by Zhao Long Ji (Chin Han). However evil terrorists, led by Kores Botha (Roland Moller), threaten to burn down the building and steal something from Zhao. However, Sawyer's wife, Sarah (Neve Campbell), and their kids, are trapped in the building, so Will goes in to save his family.

Now, one of the main problems with this, is The Rock. Yeah, the character's name is Will Sawyer, but let's face it, it's The Rock. Now there's nothing wrong with The Rock, his acting is great, he's probably the best thing in this film. But, the main thing I like to see in a film is the hero facing a challenge. Having the Rock as an amputee helps, but when he climbs a crane at least 97 stories high (the fire is started on the 95/96th floor, details are a bit hazy after two weeks, and the fire has to go up the building) and suffers zero fatigue, as well as pull off so many other implausible stunts, the idea of him being vulnerable is...thrown out the window of the world's largest building. How can we expect The Rock to be in certain danger when he seems invulnerable.

Yeah sure, we've had the same thing in the past, Superman for one, though I've never been a big Superman fan.  There's James Bond, he's saved the world God knows how many times, but he's the best of the best of British Intelligence, he's had years of training. John McClane in the Die Hard films, he's a detective but in the first film they had him run across broken glass and then have to pull out the shards of glass of his feet. The Power Rangers reboot, they had Rita Repulsa beat the hell out of the Rangers before the climatic battle. It's better to see the character or characters vulnerable or fail before they overcome their challenge/s. Not overcome them no matter what from the outset.

Now the other characters....hmm. The only really fleshed out character is Sarah, The Rock's wife, played by Neve Campbell. Sarah, to be fair, isn't the stereotypical damsel in distress, in fact she takes it on herself to do....some things, and Campbell does a good job. Their kids, played by McKenna Roberts and Noah Cottrell,....are there. As someone who did a "most annoying child actors" list they did fine, but they only serve as a rescue plot device.

Then we have our main villain Kores Botha, where again, Roland Møller did a good job. Or at least I've seen worse. The thing with Botha is that he and Zhao have a history and Botha wanted the building to burn down whilst Zhao watched helplessly, whilst stealing from him. The problem is that...why couldn't he have set the building on fire AFTER stealing from him? Wouldn't that have made EVERYTHING easier? There'd be no police presence, no Rock in the building, and you'd be on the way to freedom. Believe me, I'll be coming back to this in the spoiler section.

Supporting cast include Noah Taylor as Mr. Pierce, Hannah Quinlivan as the assassin Xia...I think, I don't think her name was ever mentioned, or at least it's stated only once and never again, Byron Mann as Inspector Wu, and Adrian Holmes as Ajani Okeke. Again, they were alright. Taylor was probably the worse, but they did alright. Although Xia...now that I think about it, I don't think has any lines. She must have had one or two, but most of the time she just does a sexy evil glare towards the camera.

So, overall, the acting isn't the problem, it's how the characters are written. It's the same cliches from 80s and 90s action flicks. Even Mann and another detective, I'm pretty sure it's Elfina Luk as Inspector Han, are the "I'll be the one who wants the whole story while you be the one who automatically assumes The Rock is the bad guy" couple. Taylor is the stereotypical British guy in an American film (again, I'll mention this in the spoilers), in fact, apart from The Rock, and probably Schreiber and Han, we don't actually deal with any other character long enough to develop them. When we're introduced to Pierce and Okeke, Pierce has one line basically saying hi and Okeke says nothing. To be fair, I loved Adrian Holmes, he was great.

The effects, can be hit and miss. The explosions are cool, and who doesn't love explosions, the hollodeck in The Pearl looks stunning, and the views to the ground actually managed to set off my vertigo, but other things like the crane swinging or bridges falling down just don't look good.


So, admittedly looking through that it sounds like I'm overall praising the film doesn't it? Well, to be fair, it isn't that bad. The acting is pretty good, especially from the Rock, but the story is a mess and predictable, the characters are weak, and it adds nothing new to what we've seen a hundred times. That's not to say it's a bad movie, it's okay at best, it's good to have on in the background, but it's a stupid film which has been much better elsewhere. In fact, go watch 'The Towering Inferno' and/or 'Die Hard'.

Now the spoiler section



Spoiler Section

Firstly, when I mentioned when Pierce and Okeke are introduced one is a British guy saying one line and the other saying nothing? Well, it's at this point where I though that the terrorists couldn't pull this off without someone on the inside. Now, who will it be? The British guy or the guy who didn't say anything? Not even sure if it's a spoiler, it's so blatantly obvious.

But it's not just that, they have TWO people on the inside, the British guy, and Ben. Ben was involved in the same incident that took Rock's leg, but left him with a scarred face. This has resulted in Ben being in pain and...somehow in debt with the terrorists. Obviously, the Rock is surely also in pain, he lost part of his leg, but Ben works at one of the most technologically advanced buildings, if not THE most technologically advanced buildings, in the world, how can he be in debt? We are never told why, it's just passed over with Ben saying how Rock got a hot wife and family and Ben got nothing, but that's it. The Rock was working in his garage, surely Ben earned more in a week than the Rock did in a year.

Oh but wait, the biggest stupid thing is yet to come.

At the start of the film, The Rock is given a tablet that biometrically scans his face so only the Rock can use it. Ben orchestrates a mugging of Rock's bag, but it turns out the Rock put the tablet in his jacket pocket and not the bag. So the terrorists, after Ben dies at the Rock's hands, send Xia and a squad to get the tablet. They get the tablet, and then force the Rock to unlock the tablet. What this means is that when they thought they originally had it, they still needed the Rock's face to unlock it! What was the point in stealing it earlier if you still needed his face to unlock the damn thing?!

Now later in the film, the bad guys have the Rock and his daughter (Campbell and his son have escaped). The terrorists want the Rock to open a panic room where Zhao is, because Pierce told them that Rock is capable of opening the door. Why Pierce, one of Zhao's right hand men, isn't capable of this, who the fuck knows. Anyway, Rock tells them that the only way to open the door is either inside, or the anti-fire systems on the floor are activated. Well, then that's fine, the bad guys control the systems...
Botha: You're going to open the door
Me: Uh, what?
Botha: Or else we're going to throw your daughter off the roof
Me: But...but you can just turn on the anti-fire systems to open the door. You control the system!

Yeah! Seriously, the bad guys make the Rock go on a stupid Spider-man climb round the side of the building to a wind turbine to open the door, when all they had to do, was activate the anti-fire systems. The terrorists don't need the Rock! They can just kill him! What, are they worried about the fire not destroying the building they're in? Well, maybe they could have waited until they stole this device they wanted, and THEN set the building on fire!

Now, the reason why they don't just enable the anti-fire, I believe it's because the locked the system down. After unlocking the tablet Xia and her squad go to an off site facility which runs the system for the Pearl. Here, Xia and her squad kill the people there and use a hacker to get into the system to turn off the anti-fire mechanics. After the hacker does this, he enables the tablet for all users, then I believe he says that he put his algorithm into the system so only he can access, he is then shot by Xia. The thing here is, if he was going to enable it so no-one can access the system, why did he enable the tablet to be accessible by ALL USERS?!

Oh! It's because Neve Campbell can't access the tablet otherwise! But wait, that hacker's algorithm means she can't turn the system on, oh well, I guess Rock and daughter are dead. Oh who am I kidding, she saves the day. And how does she do it? Well, imagine the stupidest thing you can do with a computer system that won't work properly SHE TURNS IT OFF AND ON AGAIN.

Are you serious?! This hacker's algorithm, this thing that was supposed to stop people accessing the system, prevent people from turning on the anti-fire systems, was fixed by turning it off and on again?! What the fucking hell?! It's stupid! The film's stupid! Stop being stupid movie! It's not even like the terrorists couldn't figure it out, the instruction came up in English! So they could have just turn the system off and on again, turned on the anti fire systems, open the door, and get Zhao! It's infuriatingly stupid!

Most of the film I could forgive, but this turn it off and on again bit, God!