Dwayne Johnson is no Bruce Willis; Roland Møller is no Alan Rickman, but neither fact should preclude your enjoyment of Skyscraper, a green screen Die Hard revisitation set in Hong Kong, where The Rock is not yet one of the symbols of the Chinese Zodiac. Give it time.
Skyscraper gives new meaning to the term “Hanging Rock” as Dwayne dangles from buildings more often than a gargoyle with a GoPro. Writer/Director Rawson Marshall Thurber correctly identified the most harrowing excitement of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and decided to recreate it again and again and again. In Skyscraper, The Rock hangs from ledges, ropes, cranes, holes, scaffolding, turbines, outcroppings, phony limbs, heliports, and holograms with such frequency I think second billing belongs to Screen, Green.
Playing off the premise that penis envy is not strictly confined to North America, Hong Kong kingpin Zhao Long Ji (Chin Han) has built the tallest thing ever. His building is called “The Pearl,” for its resemblance to the World Cup trophy, and it’s an impressive piece of mythological engineering. Never mind asking how a crane can get to the top of a structure three times the height of the Empire State Building. Like a bad haircut, The Pearl is business on the bottom, party on the top. Past floor ninetysomething, the offices yield to family residences which include a vertical common area and a waterfall the size of a canal. Above that are giant twin turbine windmills capable of powering the whole structure (sure, long as this is fake, may as well make it green), and on the very top, there’s a giant pearl-like dome, hollowed out so snooty executives can play hologram laser tag or some such foolishness. Seriously, why did you guys make the dome into a mirror maze? No matter; I’m sure that will come up at some point.
The trailer for Skyscraper hinted at conflict over the credentials for one-legged security expert Will Sawyer (Johnson). The film didn’t go there, which makes sense. Why would you question the merits of the security expert you hired after the fact? Of course, why there is only one security expert is beyond me, and why does Zhao immediately hand Will the security iPad override for the entire building? “I’ve never met you in person, but here is only set of keys to all maintenance systems in our brand new vertical city. Enjoy.” To no one’s surprise, the skeleton key is stolen within the next ten minutes. This is the kind of film where Pablo Schreiber shows up (as Will’s friend Ben) and you say to yourself, “Oh, that’s a bad guy.” Sure enough, Ben turns on Will before you can say, “Hong Kong Phooey.”
And, I know this part is hard to believe (wink wink), but before the terrorists set the building on fire and cancel the automated response systems, Will’s family (Neve Campbell sighting!) just happens to have 
returned to The Pearl from a day of panda-monium at the Hong Kong zoo. They are the only guests as The Pearl has yet to open to the general public. So Will, in very John McClane fashion, must save the building, save his family, save the CEO, and save face while avoiding terrorists (led by Roland Møller) and the police (led by Sting). If this all feels familiar, it should.
Yeah, it’s not like Skyscraper is intuitive or particularly sharp, but, I daresay, it was fun. Well, perhaps not entirely fun for somebody like Galileo, who almost certainly revolved in his grave watching this Rock constantly dangle but never fall to Earth. Exciting as it was to partake of Rock v. Gravity, any purveyor of movies will be reminded of the far superior version of this film, Die Hard, and may wish to go there instead. I wouldn’t blame you.
The building’s on fire, so show me
But don’t get all chummy and homey
An elegant fetter:
The peril was better
When the building was called “Nakatomi”
Rated PG-13, 102 Minutes
Director: Rawson Marshall Thurber
Writer: Rawson Marshall Thurber
Genre: Die Hardier
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Rocklings
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: The Alan Rickman tribute band
