"The Pearl Is The Tallest, Most Advanced Building In The World..."
With Rampage up there with one of the most tedious examples of over-inflated, digitally enhanced works of blockbuster trash so far this year, following on from the similarly painful endurance test which was last year's Jumanji remake, it's fair to say my opinion of Dwayne Johnson's acting pedigree has somewhat deteriorated recently, but with the release of Skyscraper, the latest movie from Rawson Marshall Thurber who reunites with Johnson after their work together on Central Intelligence, Johnson returns to the bombastic, B-Movie-centric blockbuster hero many have come to love in a movie which revels in its' utmost absurdity and succeeds in being nothing more than one heck of a fun ride. Based on a screenplay written by Thurber, Skyscraper is the type of disaster movie unashamed to scream out its' influences as it swerves between a mix of Die Hard, The Towering Inferno and Panic Room, with Johnson's former FBI agent turned amputee security adviser, Will Sawyer, forced into a perilous situation as he attempts to save his family who have been trapped within the titular structure coined "The Pearl" and a terrorist plot helmed by Roland Møller's (Atomic Blonde) muscular if underwritten Kores Botha.
With the movie taking no time out of its' harmless ninety minute runtime at all for meaningful characterisation, with even Sawyer's opening catastrophic life-changing injury flashed through without cliff-notes, Thurber's screenplay is much more interested in using Johnson's physicality to influence the story in a fashion which was gratingly absent from the actor's previous endeavours on screen, particularly in the likes of Rampage when Johnson's natural charisma was wasted in favour of over-inflated digital pixels and explosions. Whether it be a bruising and practical one-on-one fist fight, holding up crumbling bridges with just his hands or taking a leap of faith with the movie's most bananas moment as his character evades certain death when jumping from a crane into the heart of the fire ridden tower in order to save his family, Skyscraper is indeed ridiculous, but the type of movie which manages to phase through its' cheesiness and leave you with an almighty grin, even with the inclusion of corny plot exposition and character deceptions which are so obvious there really wasn't any need to attempt to hide them in the first place. Whilst offering nothing new whatsoever to the genre in which it sits, Skyscraper is a ninety minute guilty pleasure which reinforces the love for Johnson that was once lost, proving that when placed in the right scenario, The Rock is the man you need to save you from certain death.
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