You know The Rock has made it to the height of action stardom when they give him his own Die Hard movie.  The thing about Die Hard that everyone loved was that John McClane was an “every man”.  He got beat up the entire movie and persevered.  How do you take the beast that is Dwayne Johnson and bring him to that level?  You take one of his legs.  Skyscraper tries to take an old idea, update it the 30 years it needs, and then take todays top action star and literally handicap him to humanize him to a believable level.  Saying Skyscraper was over the top would be an understatement.   The length they expect you to stretch your imagination is almost laughable if it weren’t for their attempt to legitimize this plot.  Not since Tooth Fairy has this much shame been brought upon the Johnson household.

The acting in Skyscraper was not what brought it down.  Everyone involved brought their professionalism to the table and performed to their usual standard.  Dwayne Johnson (Will Sawyer) does as well as he usually does even playing a disabled person.  The physical challenge of playing a person with a disability didn’t seem to hurt his performance, but he will be winning no awards for it either.  Neve Campbell (Sarah Sawyer) plays the wife and even her character is asked to take things beyond the realm of believability.  There is really no one else worth mentioning aside from the villain of the film perhaps.  Roland Møller (Kores Botha) plays a calm terrorist pretty well.  Very Hans Gruber.

In no way should you feel obligated to see this movie.  The way this movie was shot and told shows no respect for an audience.  We always go into a theatre with an open mind and imagination to believe the story we are being told.  This movie expects you to believe its in a reality common with ours yet expects us to disregard the laws of physics and probabilities completely. The Captain Picard meme with his hand out pretty much sums up the emotion evoked in this movie, the final scene particularly.  If you do feel obligated to see this movie I will say it was not so violent that most children above 10 couldn’t handle it, but why force them to?