Film review: Skyscraper

OK, I think I owe Incredibles 2 an apology. I didn’t know how good I had it.

Skyscraper is the family-friendly Die Hard. That’s it. Normally, I’ll spend a paragraph detailing the plot, some of the actors, perhaps the director. Not today, I’ve got too much to say about this mile high garbage fire. Let’s not waste words.

Skyscraper is the most ostentatious, obvious, nonsensical, tensionless cacophonous, farcical and soulless piece of wet toilet paper stuck to the boot of cinema I’ve ever had the pleasure of finding hilarious for all the wrong reasons. I had a great time openly laughing at the bewildering sincerity the movie treats itself with. It’s Fast and Furious without the self-awareness. Oh, and as for that one line about how stupid the plot is Dwayne, for a plot as ludicrous as this, one line is not enough. Just because you acknowledge once that you’re toilet’s blocked, it doesn’t mean your house doesn’t stink.

Nothing in this movie makes sense. But at the same time, it’s incredibly predictable. I made the claim this week that Incredibles 2 featured the most transparent plot twist I’d ever seen. It certainly didn’t hold that title for long. You can pick who the ‘secret’ villains are from the very attosecond they appear on the celluloid. The Rock has two children but it’s not clear why. They entirely remove one of them from the plot quite early on so I’m not really sure who thought it would be a good idea to multiply the number of annoying kids by 100%.

Speaking of the secret villain, there’s a point at which he’s trying to capture The Rock’s family. It’s just them in the room and for some reason, he takes the mother, an unarmed woman, hostage while pointing a gun at two unarmed children… why? Just point the gun at all of them and tell them to come with you? I was choking on laughter for the entire scene at the sheer idiocy of the script.

As for the other villains, as I like to name them: Mr Muscle Moustache and Little Miss Quick Cuts (seriously who edited her fight scenes, the Tasmanian Devil?) They’re both comically unthreatening just because of how stupid they are. And this is in a movie starring Dwayne Johnson where no one looks threatening comparatively. I don’t care how many times you show me he’s an amputee, he’s still an amputee with the body of Dwayne Johnson. We literally see him perform superhuman feats in this movie so I don’t know where I’m supposed to be tense when he’s matched up with someone half his size and a 100th of his paycheque.

Oh and the villains all have vague European accents… because that’s what made the Die Hard villains good, apparently.

I could write an essay on this movie (seriously I have like a full page of unused notes) but I sense I’m pushing my luck with word count now. Please go see this movie and tweet me @Mcfadgy. I’m sort of giddy about how bad it was.