SKYSCRAPER
Rock climbing…
I f you can’t fix it with duct tape, you’re not using enough duct tape,” blurts Dwayne Johnson in a sticky moment here. Alas, writer/director Rawson Marshall Thurber failed to heed such dozy DIY wisdoms when it came to his script holes. Anyone seeking sweaty-palmed, vertiginous silliness won’t feel short-changed by this latest Rock-buster, but even they might ask: did sense and self-awareness have to get stuck in the lift?
Johnson’s Will Sawyer is a safety assessor and amputee who turns crane-scaling rescuer when his wife (Neve Campbell) and kids become trapped in a flaming 240-story ’scraper, courtesy of Roland Møller’s Hans Gruber-lite villain.
Since Dodgeball director Thurber appears to have suffered a humour bypass, Skyscraper is no Die Hard. Its earnestness almost even makes Rampage look smart, yet it outranks stodgy rubble-rouser San Andreas in the Rock charts thanks to Thurber’s crudely efficient focus on Johnson’s can-do commitment to cheerfully ludicrous set-pieces. Campbell proves action-ready too, despite expository dire-logue issues. “What’s going on?” she asks, hopefully. Tape up any expectations of a sensible answer and you might have fun with Thurber’s big, dumb, summer throwaway. Kevin Harley
THE VERDICT
Logic and laughs run low, but this high-rise hokum scrapes a three for a game-faced Rock and sense of escapist purpose.