Skyscraper (2018) * * *

Directed by:  Rawson Marshall Thurber

Starring:  Dwayne Johnson, Neve Campbell, Pablo Schreiber, Roland Moller, Byron Mann, Chin Han

To say the villains wreak unnecessary havoc in their quest to obtain a flash drive is putting it mildly.    They start a fire on the 96th floor of The Pearl, which is soon to open as the world's tallest skyscraper, and then shut off the fire suppression systems remotely causing the building to burn out of control.    Surely, there must've been easier and less conspicuous ways to achieve their goal, but nevertheless here we are.    With that being said, Skyscraper does its job and makes us care enough about its plot to keep us occupied.    If you're expecting realism, you've come to the wrong action movie.

Skyscraper never pretends to be more than it is.    Its plot is simplistic and its characters are clearly drawn, although it is cool to be Neve Campbell as our hero's wife do some butt kicking of her own.    She is not simply a wife and mother who stands idly by awaiting rescue.    At crucial times, she takes matters into her own hands with help of some foreshadowing we can detect a mile away.    The star, of course, is Dwayne Johnson, who plays Will Sawyer, an ex-FBI hostage rescue agent turned independent safety assessor following an on-the-job massacre which cost him his leg from the knee down.    He wears a prosthetic, which serves as both a help and hindrance at different points, but like every Johnson role, he opens up a can of whoop ass with the best of them and looks convincing doing it.    Oh, and he finds himself dangling from high, high places more often than not.    If you expected anything less, you've come to the wrong action movie.

Sawyer is hired by The Pearl's creator Zhao (Han) to assess its safety and security systems.    Sawyer knows his stuff and it comes in handy when trying to save his family from the raging inferno.    But, before Sawyer can complete the job, the Eurotrash villains led by Botha (Moller) is afoot, and Sawyer and his family (who live on the 98th floor as guests while Sawyer does his thing) finds themselves trapped in the deadly situation.    Sawyer is at first a suspect and wanted by Hong Kong police, but since he actually manages to work his way into the burning building using a crane, the police change their tune.   

A crowd gathers below and cheers Sawyer's every move, although we are puzzled to determine how the crowd can see that high up or witness real-time news footage.    Are there high-definition, giant screens which one would see at a sporting event around?    Skyscraper has been compared to Die Hard, and there are similarities in the plot (although The Pearl is considerably taller than the Nakotomi Building of Die Hard), but Skyscraper stands on its own well enough as a CGI-laden thriller.    Skyscraper isn't Die Hard to be sure, but isn't low-rent either.