Searching (2018): written and directed by Aneesh Changanty with Sev Ohanian; starring John Cho (David Kim), Michelle La (Margot Kim), and Debra Messing (Detective Vick): Tight, innovative thriller plays out entirely on the computer screen through various applications and feeds. It works on a TV screen without causing eyestrain because the camera does zoom in on relevant material, unlike the Unfriended movies, which are best watched on a computer screen from 18 inches away.
John Cho plays a widower who discovers one day that he doesn't know what his teen-aged daughter has been doing in the months since her mother died. Cho's quest to find his daughter will play out on Facebook and in chat rooms, vlog posts and email and texts. Debra Messing plays the police detective assigned to the case, already more than 24 hours old by the time Cho realizes his daughter is missing.
Searching works in part because it remains intimately focused on Cho's grief and anger. It's also extremely clever in displaying all the ways we are watched in our day-to-day life, voluntarily and involuntarily. The film-makers also do a nice job of creating a twisty plot that plays fair with the audience with its investigative plot. All the evidence of what happened is there -- you just have to watch carefully. All this and several distinctively Hitchcockian tropes deployed in a thoroughly modern manner. Recommended.
Skyscraper (2018): written and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber; starring Dwayne Johnson (Will Sawyer) and Neve Campbell (Sarah Sawyer): Die Hard meets The Towering Inferno meets the Age of Social Media in this preposterous, vaguely enjoyable piece of crap.
Duane Johnson is the one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest, security consultant to the world's newest tallest building in Hong Kong. Criminals take over! His family is imperiled!
Virtually every heroic action Johnson's character takes is applauded wildly for by hordes of onlookers nearby with their smartphones raised to the air, and by what I assume is one hell of a worldwide TV audience. It's like Skyscraper included its own audience in the movie! Jesus, there's probably a paper in this!
As seems to happen in every movie starring that former Rock, the human antagonists are underwhelming. Arnold Schwarzenegger was willing to be pummeled by T-1000's and Predators for his Art. The Rock only faces inferior humans, earthquakes, giant fires, giant monsters, and Egyptian gods. Is Duane Johnson insecure? Because this seems like the insecure choices of an insecure man. Get beat up by a Predator already, Rock! Not recommended.
