'Skyscraper' Is Predictable and Mindless, yet an Entertaining Action Thriller

These days, action thrillers are growing more and more alike. I mean, don't get me wrong. I LOVE action movies. But they're all about some hero who loses their family or something like that and they have to go and save them while fighting those bad guys.

But out of all the action movies I've watched, I've never seen a premise as cliché as Skyscraper.

I mean, a building gets taken over by terrorists, and a hero needs to save the day because his family is inside? That's just Die Hard, man.

Well, I watched the movie today, and the movie actually didn't end up that much like Die Hard. It DID have a similar premise, but it had MANY differences from Die Hard. The most obvious one being that Die Hard is so much better than Skyscraper.

So, let's do a review for Dwayne Johnson's summer action movie with the WADSE criteria (Writing, Acting, Directing, Soundtrack, Enjoyment). Let's do this.

Writing

The movie was written by Rawson Marshall Thurber in his first non-comedy film. And he did a good job with the dramatic writing with brief moments of humor.

But I didn't like the film's writing that much. I didn't see anything in this movie that I hadn't already seen in another action movie. Nothing about this movie really felt original or special.

There are two good guys in the movie who end up getting revealed to be bad guys. I knew they were bad guys before their big reveals, so I have to say, this movie didn't do a good job of hiding who the bad guys were.

Also, Kores Botha is no Hans Gruber and the team of terrorists who break into the building are all two-dimensional. We never get to know any of them the way we got to know about Karl, Tony, Marco, or Theo.

The terrorists' motives are also quite boring, as all they want from the building is a flash drive.

And I expected the film to have better action, given that the main actor is a former wrestler. But the action scenes were either lazily choreographed, too short, or just not entertaining. I wanted to see The Rock do some more hand-to-hand combat in this movie and fight some more terrorists.

And while I like my movies simple, this movie's simplicity ended up being its downfall. Much of the movie is simply Will Sawyer saving his family and doing something death-defying in a burning building. The plot is paper thin, and it lacks all the charm that Die Hard gave us.

There is one scene in particular that's one of my favorite action scenes in movie history and the high point of the film. Not gonna spoil it for you, but you should know it when you see it.

Now, the story in and of itself is pretty cliché, but every single action movie trope you can think of is in this movie. Like, in the scene you see above where you see Sarah walking on the plank of wood, at the last second, she almost falls off, but she ends up getting back up and surviving just as the wood breaks and falls into the flames.

Like, that is just too cliché. Entertaining, but I've seen it before.

Skyscraper lacked in a good story and simply borrows too much of its premise from Die Hard and The Towering Inferno. The action scenes were too fast, and a lot of the movie just relied on clicking buttons on a screen to control the fire.

In my opinion, action movies need two things to work: good action and good story. Skyscraper had an okay story, and some okay action, but it just didn't quite satisfy me.

The film also seemed like it was trying to pay homage to 90s action films. Well, I know my action films, and if that's what they wanted to do, they needed to put in more fight scenes and more one-liners.

Writing Score: 9/20

Acting

Well, what can I say? The acting was fine. Everyone in the film did a good job in their respective roles, but there were no standout performances. Dwayne Johnson was pretty good as Will, and his performance was probably the most standout in the film's sea of averagely good performances.

Acting Score: 18/20

Directing

The directing was okay. I mean, I believe directors such as Christopher McQuarrie and Alejandro G. Iñárritu are better when it comes to directing action.

Now, I'd say I enjoyed Thurber's directing for the film. For an action movie, his directing was pretty average, but there were some parts that I actually really enjoyed.

The final action sequence takes place in an area filled with mirrors. And I always appreciate directors that film with a lot of mirrors in the scene (though the scene was kind of ripping off John Wick: Chapter 2).

So, I'd say the directing was cool.

Directing Score: 17/20

Soundtrack

The film's score was composed by Steve Jablonsky, who had previously composed the themes for Transformers. And there really wasn't anything that special about the film's soundtrack.

I mean, I can say the same for great films like Die Hard and The Green Mile, but I just generally didn't feel entertained by the soundtrack in this movie.

Soundtrack Score: 16/20

Enjoyment

So, how much did I enjoy Skyscraper? I know I've mainly criticized the movie for being subpar, but I did enjoy watching it. It's something I'd definitely want to watch if it played on TV.

There were scenes I really liked, from the "jumping off a crane" scene to basically everything the badass Hannah Quinlivan did.

So, did I enjoy this movie? Yes, I did. The movie is mainly just mindless fire and predictable twists, but it's nevertheless pretty entertaining.

Not my favorite action movie, though. Definitely not. And I'd say this movie is pretty forgettable.

Enjoyment Score: 15/20

FINAL SCORE: 75/100

And if you don't want the BEST PART of this movie spoiled for you, get out, because I'M SPOILING IT RIGHT NOW.

That mirror scene where Will reveals to Kores, "I'm behind you," is F**KING AWESOME.

My mouth was open with delight at that scene. But anyways, that's all I have to say on the movie.