Skyscraper Review

Last week's big action flick might as well been called "Rock Hard," as this is effectively a remake of the far superior 1988 film "Die Hard" with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson (Though I think "Duct Tape: The Action Movie" is just as good, as Dwayne uses the sticky stuff to get out of more than one sticky situation.)

Mr. Johnson plays Will Sawyer, who's in the security business for skyscrapers (which much be a new field, as I've never heard of such an occupation), working out of his garage with his wife and two kids. An old friend Ben (Pablo Schreiber) offers him the chance of a lifetime, to inspect the world's tallest building, located in Hong Kong.

What could possibly go wrong?

Of course, if you have ever seen an action film, particularly any that isolates the hero outnumbered in a foreign, you know the drill; there's a double crossing, incompetent cops, and a seemingly unlimited number of bad guys with bad shots but tons of ammo. What matters here is the action itself, which is pretty good, even if it is just Dwayne Johnson doing his best John McClane (though without the chain-smoking or one-liners).

His only defining characteristic was his missing leg, which, though a marvel technical achievement in removing appendages for stars, did little to actually define his character. Sure, it raises the stakes a bit (not unlike Bruce Willis' bloodied feet in "Die Hard"), but am I really supposed to believe that, biceps and all, that The Rock is no match for dozens of nameless henchmen with guns? I think not.

There is an overarching theme of family, and how its power can overwhelm any odds, but that softness hurts the overall film's effectiveness; for every movie "Skyscraper" shamelessly riffs on, it lacks edge, the brutal, bloody shootouts and fight-outs that will get more teenagers in the cinema but less old-timers like me.

The setting of Hong Kong is nothing but background story to the building- there is no exotic atmosphere in any scene, especially inside the skyscraper, where it looks like a vertical "Mall of America" in its prime. Upon some internet searching, it doesn't surprise me that Chinese-owned Legendary Pictures financed this film.