Review of Skyscraper

By Dave B.

​In Skyscraper (2019), Dwayne Johnson plays a former FBI SWAT team leader who lost the lower part of his left leg and most of his team (as well as a family being held hostage) after hesitating in the line of duty. Years later, he’s an independent security consultant who’s been given the opportunity of a lifetime: testing the security and safety systems of the tallest building in the world, a ridiculously lavish skyscraper in Hong Kong. His family moves into the building with him, as the project is fairly time consuming. So when gangsters attempt to destroy the building in a complex scheme to silence the building’s billionaire owner, Johnson springs into action (or more accurately hops on one leg, which is something that he does several times throughout the film) in order to save his family (the only people living in the building, of course) from a rapidly rising inferno.

​Look, I’m a huge fan of Dwayne Johnson. He can make nearly any decent movie a lot of fun and even make some bad movies watchable. However his charm isn’t enough to save Skyscraper which is a ridiculous and poorly executed homage to Die Hard. Part of the movie’s troubles stem from its PG-13 rating, which removes any real sense of threat to most of the protagonists. A more fundamental problem with the film is that it’s unceasingly ludicrous and unflinchingly predictable. It’s inexcusable for a 104 minute long action movie, with perhaps the most famous action star in the world in it, to be actively boring for nearly the entire film. And the big budget stunts in the movie are so absurdly impossible that I dare viewers to watch the whole movie without letting loose a single derisive guffaw.

In short, Skyscraper completely fails in execution. It tries to be a family-friendly Die Hard, but who in the world would want that to exist??? And to add insult to injury, the post-film credit scene is possibly the worst one that I’ve ever seen. I definitely don’t recommend this movie. In fact, I don’t really have anything good to say about it, at all. This one is a hard pass. Watch it at your own peril. You’ve been warned. 

Rating: 4/10