Skyscraper review: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson swings back-and-forth in mediocrity

It's predictable edge of your seat fanfare that ultimately amounts to nothing. Nothing, because this movie doesn't deviate from the genre's tropes. This action thriller doesn't surprise. It doesn't dare to step out of the box. It’s a big-budget run-of-the-mill blockbuster.

Starring, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Skyscraper is, in a nutshell, a husband's mission to rescue his wife and two children from a burning building. Not just any building, but the tallest skyscraper in the world. To add to all this drama, Dwayne Johnson is disabled, having lost his leg in an explosion years ago. Seemingly unstoppable, Dwayne Johnson jumps, runs and fights without a single iota of blood on his sleeve.

Every twist, every turn, is par for the course. Well before standing up for the national anthem, you'd have already figured out what happens at the end of Skyscraper. There isn't one moment in the film when you're like, "maybe what I thought, might actually not be the ending".

The action scenes at the centre of the movie make the Mission Impossible films look and feel like The Godfather. Director Rawson Marshall Thurber has completely missed the plot here. There’s the scene in the trailer where The Rock jumps off a cane and smashes into the building. Ludicrous at best, these kinds of scenes do nothing to advance a razor-thin plot. It just goes to show the implausibility of the stunts on show.

While the script is very vanilla, the actors do nothing to boost this big budget blockbuster. This homage to Die Hard stars Dwayne Johnson as Will Sawyer. Sawyer is a former FBI Hostage Rescue Team leader and now assesses the security of skyscrapers. The other characters - Sarah Sawyer (Neve Campbell), Zhao Long Ji (Chin Han), Kores Botha (Roland Moller), Ben (Pablo Schreiber), Mr. Pierce (Noah Taylor), Xia (Hannah Quinlivan) and others - only serve to give The Rock something to do. They serve to provide a little tug-and-pull.

The fact that Hollywood is pandering to the Chinese market is nothing new. The problem is, that it is either ‘in your face’ pandering or just plain obnoxious. In Skyscraper, the plot goes as so: A rich Chinese billionaire has his pet project hijacked by terrorists and The Rock’s family is stuck in the skyscraper and has to once again save the day.

The posters and trailers tell you the exact story, and for me and seasoned viewers, that’s more than enough. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson hangs one-handed from a fiery building with the whole world 220 floors beneath him. That’s not subtle. In fact, Dwayne Johnson rarely doesn’t hang from the tower during the course of the movies 109-minute run time.