SKYSCRAPER

With a cinematic presence that’s calculated to improve any film by at least 30% (no, I will not reveal my mathematical processes in arriving at that number), Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson stars as ex-military Security expert Will Sawyer, tasked to sign off on the security systems viability of ‘The Pearl’, a gargantuan new addition to the Hong Kong skyline as well as being the tallest building ever constructed. As his wife Sarah (Neve Campbell) and his children are the only inhabitants of the residential section of the building, Sawyer travels around Hong Kong to secure the final details of the building’s security systems sign-off.

During this period, dodgy Euro-mercenaries infiltrate the building and, thinking it’s vacant, proceed with setting it alight. Their exact motives are unclear, though on the penthouse level of ‘The Pearl’, building owner and filthy rich magnate Zhao Long Ji (Chin Han) shields himself within impenetrable walls, holding a MacGuffin of such magnitude, that the Euro bad guys are willing to kill and burn anything they can, just to get to it. Cue The Rock who, desperate to gain access to the burning tower, commandeers a huge nearby crane, guiding it to the building’s upper floors, before using it as a makeshift platform upon which to leap into the building, to reunite with his beloved family and to break every bad guy into tiny, tiny pieces.

The Hong Kong setting (squarely aiming this at an international demographic) and Chinese co-leads make for an interesting diversion from the fact that Writer/Director Rawson Marshall Thurber (Central Intelligence, We're The Miller's, Dodgeball) has lifted every plot machination and trope from Die Hard and The Towering Inferno that he possibly can, infusing tech-gloss and by-the-numbers emotional beats into a fairly pedestrian genre blend. Ultimately, none of this matters once Dwayne Johnson rolls onto the screen, his winning charisma and (frankly disturbing) sincerity and intense likability means that every stupid plot twist and well-worn story beat is rendered irrelevant, as we the audience are forced to surrender to Johnson’s affable charms. Is it dumb? Yes. Is there a perverse fun to be had in watching Johnson open a can of whoop-ass on Euro scumbags with crap haircuts? Absolutely.