The Rock's Skyscraper is predictable but fun

MOVIE REVIEW: Skyscraper

Director: Rawson Marshall Thurber

Starring: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Neve Campbell

The Rock is at it again, taking the lead role in the high-budget, big-effects blockbuster Skyscraper. This time, he’s a married military man Will Sawyer, who’s in charge of security at the world’s tallest building – a high-tech facility 220 floors high, dwarfing the planet’s current architectural giants.

This building, which is actually the star of this feature, provides a vivid vision of what the future could bring. It powers itself with wind turbines, has a forest inside of it and can even confine a fire to one area of the building.

This all works well until a South African baddie called Botha targets the building for his own nefarious reasons. It’s quite funny hearing the cast try to say Botha, it always comes out like “boater”.

Botha disables the building’s anti-fire measures, and Sawyer goes into MacGyver mode to save his family, who are trapped inside. At one stage, this guy is outside of the building dangling only on some rope and duct tape.

Skycraper is entertaining and wonderfully far-fetched, and The Rock is not the usual hero with all the answers and clever quips. In this, he’s a bit more vulnerable and, even though we know he’s The Rock, he feels like the underdog for most of the film.

It’s also good to see Neve Campbell again (she plays Sawyer’s wife), and it felt like the 90s in some scenes.

All the ingredients you need for a thrilling blockbuster are here, but, unfortunately, there aren’t any real harrowing twists in the tale. You know Botha will come up short, but I couldn’t help getting behind the South Africa-inspired villain. Perhaps this will start a trend in Hollywood.