You really just can’t smell what The Rock is cooking.
Or in the case of his latest adrenaline-inducing flick, “Skyscraper,” you can’t tell what death-defying stunts he’s going to come up with.
Or just how incredibly strong his fingers are.
Rawson Marshall Thurber’s action-packed film adds another gasp-inducing, highly entertaining flick to Johnson’s arsenal.
There’s a reason why The Rock is among the highest paid actors in Hollywood today. This is proof.
“Skyscraper” is a highly entertaining movie. It has all the right ingredients that will make you want to grab a really good bucket of popcorn and head out to the cinemas: jaw-dropping stunts, impressive special effects, villains you love to hate, and a protagonist you will empathize with.
“Skyscraper” ticked all these boxes. And that’s why it’s an experience you will enjoy.
In the movie, Will Sawyer (Dwayne Johnson) plays a former FBI agent who just got hired as a security consultant for The Pearl, the world’s tallest building.
Turns out, some baddies are out to steal something extremely important from the building’s owner, Zhao Min Ji (Chin Han) and they pulled off an elaborate plot to put the building on fire.
Sawyer played an unwittingly important part in the ploy and that meant his family becomes entangled in the chaos.
Pursued by the police as a suspect, Sawyer must find a way to save his family from the burning building. But how will he do it especially when they are more than 90 floors above the ground?
This is where the movie jumps into the third gear. Thurber pulls out all the stops (and succeeded) in the mission to save Sawyer’s family. Those included some impressive sequences that involved Sawyer scaling a building with only a rope and some duct tape, making an impossible jump, and supporting a broken bridge with his bare hands.
He’s gone from outsmarting monster-sized alligators to becoming a one-man rescue team in Hong Kong. That’s an impressive feat.
The thing is, for some audience, these stunts would seem ludicrous but–I don’t know, maybe it’s because of the execution and the overall effect of all the elements coming together–watching Johnson pull off all those was fun to watch. And, for a few minutes, looked incredibly real.
There’s something about Dwayne Johnson that adds a sense of genuineness to a stunt. That’s a good thing.
But more than these, what stood out for me was Neve Campbell who played Sawyer’s wife. The “Scream” star couldn’t have had a better comeback than her role here. She’s clearly not just a damsel in distress. She’s a butt-kicking wife and mother and it’s a joy to see her presence on the screen.
“Skyscraper” tackles one of the most popular movie themes: family. And it’s nice that films of late are geared towards this. It showed us how one man is willing to do anything for his family. That with quick-thinking, a little creativity, and a lot of love, no building is high enough to keep him from his family.
It’s also very important to note that the movie has a really impressive final act. That sequence inside the dome, where “you can see heaven” is masterfully executed and makes for a nice ending for the film.
Photo credits: Universal Pictures
