Skyscraper

I’m convinced that at some point in 2017, Dwayne Johnson signed a contract that legally required him to be sweatier than any other human being in cinematic history. Watching him in Skyscraper, you can almost smell the singed polyester and overpriced Hong Kong real estate through the screen. I watched this while my neighbor was very loudly power-washing his driveway, and honestly, the rhythmic whoosh of the water really added to the "building fire" ambiance.

Skyscraper is a fascinating artifact of the late 2010s. It arrived right as the "Star-as-IP" era was hitting its zenith. We weren't going to see a movie about a burning building; we were going to see a movie about The Rock fighting a burning building. Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber (who previously teamed with Johnson for Central Intelligence and later the Netflix mega-hit Red Notice), it’s a film that leans heavily into the "Dad Movie" aesthetic—a subgenre where the stakes are purely familial, the physics are optional, and the solution to every problem is a well-placed roll of duct tape.

The Physics of the Impossible

The plot is a lean, mean, 102-minute machine. Will Sawyer (Dwayne Johnson) is a former FBI hostage negotiator who lost a leg in a botched raid and now assesses security for the world’s tallest buildings. He’s brought to "The Pearl" in Hong Kong—a 225-story vertical city—by an old friend (Noah Taylor). Naturally, terrorists led by the icy Kores Botha (Roland Møller) set the place on fire to smoke out the building’s owner (Ng Chin Han), and Sawyer’s family (Neve Campbell and the kids) is trapped above the fire line.

From a contemporary perspective, Skyscraper is the ultimate "streaming comfort food," even if it started in theaters. It’s built on the bones of Die Hard and The Towering Inferno, but it swaps out John McClane’s vulnerability for The Rock’s biceps, which are essentially a separate character with their own SAG card. The action choreography is where the film earns its keep. There is a sequence involving a giant exterior crane that is so spectacularly nonsensical it circles back around to being impressive.

I’ll give Thurber credit: he understands the scale. The cinematography by Robert Elswit—who shot There Will Be Blood and Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol—makes the height feel nauseating. When Sawyer is dangling off the side of the building with nothing but a prosthetic leg and a dream, you feel that tug in your stomach. It’s a masterclass in making the audience feel like they’ve forgotten their keys at the bottom of a very deep well.

Duct Tape and Heavy Lifting

While the film was a modest success domestically, it was clearly engineered for the global market, particularly China. You can see the gears turning in the production design—the lush Hong Kong skyline, the diverse cast, and a plot that doesn't require a PhD in English to follow. But beneath the corporate engineering, there’s some genuine heart. Neve Campbell, returning to the big screen with a role that could have been a "damsel" cliché, actually gets a lot to do. She’s smart, she’s physical, and she treats the situation with a grounded seriousness that balances The Rock’s superhuman antics.

The film has developed a bit of a cult following among action junkies who appreciate its "honesty." It doesn't pretend to be a gritty deconstruction of the genre. It’s a movie where a man jumps from a crane into a building and somehow doesn't turn into a human pancake. Turns out, fans of modern B-movies adore that kind of audacity. It’s the kind of film that pops up on a "Recommended" rail on a Tuesday night and you end up watching the whole thing because you just need to see if the duct tape actually holds (spoiler: it does).

Stuff You Didn’t Notice

The production of Skyscraper had some surprisingly thoughtful touches that often get lost in the shuffle of the explosions:

To prepare for the role, Dwayne Johnson worked closely with Jeff Glasbrenner, a paralympian and the first American amputee to climb Mount Everest. Johnson was adamant about portraying the prosthetic leg as a tool rather than a disability. The building itself, "The Pearl," isn't just a random CGI asset. The crew hired world-renowned architect Adrian Smith—the guy who actually designed the Burj Khalifa—to consult on the building’s structural logic. Neve Campbell performed several of her own stunts, including the white-knuckle sequence on the bridge. She reportedly took the role because she wanted her kids to see her being as much of a hero as their dad. The "duct tape scene" was a direct, intentional nod to Die Hard. Rawson Marshall Thurber wanted to pay homage to the "MacGyver-ing" of 80s action heroes. * That prosthetic leg? It actually caused a minor controversy in the trailer because of the physics of how Sawyer was jumping. Johnson had to jump on social media to explain the "math" of how his character used the leg for leverage.

In an era of endless cinematic universes, there’s something almost refreshing about a movie that is just "Big Man vs. Big Building." It’s not an "instant classic," and it’s certainly not reinventing the wheel, but it knows exactly what it is. It’s a high-altitude thrill ride that works best if you don’t think too hard about wind resistance or structural integrity. If you're looking for a film to fill a gap on a rainy afternoon, you could do a lot worse than watching The Rock treat a 200-story skyscraper like a giant jungle gym.

It’s the ultimate "Dad Movie" for the 21st century—efficient, slightly ridiculous, and powered by the belief that any disaster can be averted if you’re just strong enough and have enough adhesive tape. It’s exactly the kind of fun we go to the movies for, even if we’re just watching it on our phones while waiting for the bus. Just remember: don't look down.