Skyscraper (Dir.Rawson Marshall Thurber, 1h 42m)

X meets Y is a concept as old as time, where two concepts are merrily melded together to form something new. Seven Samurai, but with cowboys? The Magnificent Seven. With bugs? A Bugs Life. A zombie movie. With a british romcom? Shaun of the Dead. With Norwegians facing off against Nazis? Dod Snow. And so on. Skyscraper,  the new film from comedy stalwart Thurber, is, in short, Die Hard meets Towering Inferno, with  Dwayne Johnson racing against time to stop a heist, rescue his family, and stop a fire destroying the tallest building in the world, The Pearl, and, despite it being less than the sum of its parts, Skyscraper is still a decent, if undemanding adventure.

Certainly, much of what does make Skyscraper enjoyable is Johnson's character, Will Sawyer; a likable, tough yet caring father and husband, who despite his disability-his previous role as a CIA hostage negotiator having gone wrong one mission at the cost of his lower leg-is still every inch the action hero. Whilst one could suggest this role could-or indeed should-have gone to an actor who was an amputee rather than digitally editing out Sawyer's leg, the fact remains that this is still a decent step forward to including characters of this type-neither is it a detail that appears once, as Johnson, and his prosthetic are pushed to physical breaking point at multiple points
What Johnson also brings to the role is his typical mix of charming and resourceful-there are multiple death-defying set pieces, most notably the so-ridiculous-it's-brilliant leap from a crane to inside the Pearl, where your heart is in your mouth, but Johnson sells, much as Willis did in Die Hard, that these death defying leaps, and along-ledge crawls, several hundred feet up, are testing him to the limits. Yet, at his heart, much as John McClain did, Sawyer simply wants to rescue his family.

Sawyer's family, for their part, are well-rounded, if somewhat stereotypical characters-his children are likable, if not given much to do, with the exception of one late third-act scene, whilst his wife, Sarah (Neve Campbell), is seen as every inch her husband's equal, given her own action setpieces, and, in an ironic twist, proves to be the true "hero" of the day. There is also Chin Han's character, Zhao, the owner of the Pearl, who moves from innocent caught in the middle of a heist, to a surprisingly resourceful figure, even as chaos erupts around him. If there's one thing to fault this film, on, however, is that, despite its Hong Kong setting, most of the Chinese characters, including the police, are given too little to do, and often sit passively watching as Sawyer makes his daring ascents across the Pearl's outside.

Ranged against them are the usual motley crew of this genre of film, and it's here that the film could have been more like Die Hard-aside from one hacker, the chinese lieutenant of the villain, and the villain, Botha (Roland Møller), none of the villains have much character, and in the film's many firefights, it's almost impossible to tell them apart. Even Xia, the lieutenant, is given too little to do, despite her clear resourcefulness, and ends up on the sidelines of the film for long stretches of its runtime.

The effects are certainly impressive-even in the now memetic crane jump, there's a sense of believability, and the Pearl itself, and the fire that rages inside it, is excellently brought to life, with the Pearl's pure size lending itself perfectly to some of the film's best visuals. There is, in particular, a superbly shot, and surprisingly gripping scene that serves as the film's action denoument, with a gunfight and chase taking place inside an electronic hall of screens that mirror and refract the action, leading to an excellently paced showdown between Sawyer and Botha.

Yet, the film as a whole does, unfortunately, play its cards in two familiar patterns-there are entire sequences that seem to have been lifted, with little alteration, from Die Hard, whilst others, including the lift scene, have been lifted from the film's other key influence, The Towering Inferno. In a better director's hands, these homages could have been knitted together better, or a creative new spin placed on them, but Thurber's style is too workmanlike, despite the spectacular nature of the Pearl, and its accelerating fire as effects, and Johnson's likablity and believablity as an action star, to pull it off. What we get, thus, is a film that, whilst entertaining, is sadly underwhelming, despite its star's best efforts.

Rating: Neutral