Her Brains, His Brawn...and, Vulnerability.

So, Skyscraper Dwayne Johnson’s second movie of this year’s his ode to the Bruce Willis driven Die Hard franchise, but where Die Hard was about one man saving his wife from terrorists, Skyscraper’s actually not so much about Johnson’s Will Sawyer than his family.

Sawyer’s a US vet, former FBI Hostage Rescue Team leader, and amputee survivor, who moves to China with his wife, Sarah (Neve Campbell, yeah, Sidney from the Scream franchise and more recently Netflix’s House of Cards), and their two kids to the highest apartment complex, reportedly ever, to be security when it catches on fire.  Since he’s in charge of security, his name’s at the top of the list for starting said fire…even though his fam lives there.  He has to race to save his name and more importantly to him, his fam.

Now, Campbell’s largely been out of the Hollywood game by her own doing, showing up here and there in various parts.  In Skyscraper, I dare say, she steals the show from Johnson playing Mamma Bear protecting her kids from the aforementioned fire as well as the heavies hellbent on taking she and the kids out to carry out their agenda.  In one sequence she and Will work together to make a ridge for her to get to their son.

Yeah, Johnson plays the amputee well with all the vulnerability that’d come with having a prosthetic as opposed to the full limb.  It’s strange to see him get his ass handed to him for sequences until the heavy gets sloppy and Johnson can retrieve his prosthesis to use as a weapon, which sounds corny, but IMO, genius at the same time.

I’ve read criticism that the action’s not realistic with a prosthesis, specifically the jump from the crane to the skyscraper.  Actually, he doesn’t land that jump, he has to scramble up to the ledge, which might still take some suspension of belief, but it’s definitely not a clean jump.

That said, without Campbell’s Sarah, Will would not’ve saved the kids, plain and simple.  While he’s the action, she’s the brains to try to get him the help he’ll need to A. help them and B. save his name.

With his second daughter born in April, Johnson’s been leaning more fam fare with Rampage earlier this year, again pushing the inclusive angle with his use of ASL (American Sign Language) with George, the ape, who he considers fam.  Skyscraper continues that sentiment.

So, regardless what the trailers led you to believe, there’s more to Skyscraper than a one-man army and huge fireballs in a skyscraper.  There’s family teamwork.

Be good to each other.

-J-