Skyscraper

Usually I like movies with "The Rock" - but this is lame. It has some good ideas but it is not thrilling. Noticeable: The biggist tower of Hongkong is burning and I saw no single fireman in the whole movie. That's Hollywood.

I was hoping 'Skyscraper' would be in the vein of 'Die Hard', a bad-ass, original and epic action movie where anything felt on the cards as a possibility. Instead it was pretty much the opposite of all of those things. 'The Rock' was given almost no opportunity to show off his undeniable charm. The script just hampered him in every way and left him as nothing more than a muscly guy who could do impressive stunts. But trust me, 'The Rock' is the least of the problems this film has.

The biggest gripe I have is just how dull it is. The film actually starts off with a pretty menacing villain and some violent and brutal killings. At this stage I had hope for the film, but all of that ended pretty abruptly and from that point onwards every bad guy in the film was unbelievably incompetent. The whole story arc plays out in about as cliche of a fashion as you could ever imagine. It's all very underwhelming and disappointing.

As for positives they are hard to come by. Some of the visuals are impressive and 'The Rock' does his best to keep things watchable despite being given absolutely no help. Otherwise though I would say this is a complete misfire and not worth anyone's time or money.

I was pretty entertained. The Rock is a capable actor but he's always gonna impress more with his charisma than range. But this "dad" type role suited him well. And while he's still former military/police, he comes across more as capable than physically dominant like he often is in other films. This trait is enhanced by his disability set up in the beginning of the film.

The movie has a pretty unbelievable plot and storyline but the editing is fairly strong. The story is kept moving and events are explained quickly to keep things going and avoid getting caught up in any convoluted plot points trying to explain why anything is the way it is. I really think the pace was the strongest part of this film.

The climax is where the motivations get a little bogged down in a conveniently contrived backstory to explain why the villains are motivated.

All that said, it's a solid action flick with a bit of heart, a lot of explosions and some fun fights mixed in with a lot of high wire acrobatics by The Rock that will definitely make your palms sweat.

Personally, I'd say this is The Rock's best lead role since his early days in The Rundown and Walking Tall. I certainly enjoyed it far more than I anticipated. I think the beginning scene could've been just explained through backstory and the explanation about the villains before the climax was pretty cheesy, but it didn't detract from my enjoyment of the film.

Actors were all mostly decent, I cheered for the main character and it's a family oriented action film so you know it has a happy ending. But it still did a decent job of making things suspenseful and enjoyable along the way.

Well, I was not expecting a Cannes Film Festival breakout, or Academy Award contender. To all those reviews that say the movie is cliched, predictable, just another Die Hard knock off... WTF were you expecting!? This movie delivered on the action, and the skyscraper was very, very cool! Yes the acting was not deep, but it was not bad either...The Rock looks great whatever he does, I mean come on people, Arnold and Stallone were not Shakespearean actors either!! I have seen literally hundreds of " Mediocre" action flicks, and this one ranks a point or two higher IMO. If you want to kick back and watch a mostly mindless, ridiculous, silly, and fun action movie, then you will enjoy this one.

It's not actually awful or even bad per se, but it's worse.. yes it's mediocrity defined! It's predictable, rather boring and all the best parts have been shown in the trailers. Dwayne Johnson is good, but can't save this. Sorry!