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.
Rampage (2018): written by Ryan Engle, Carlton Cuse, Ryan J. Condal, and Adam Sztykiel; directed by Brad Peyton; starring Dwayne Johnson (Davis), Naomie Harris (Dr. Caldwell), Malin Akerman (Claire Wyden), Jake Lacy (Brett Wyden), and Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Agent Russell):
Based on a 1980's video game I'd never heard of until after viewing this movie, Rampage is a dumb but enjoyable giant-monster movie. It's no Pacific Rim, but it's certainly better than Pacific Rim: Uprising, and it's certainly a frothier, lighter film than the 2012 Godzilla reboot.
Dwayne Johnson plays a gorilla expert who's also a former Black Ops super-soldiery sort of fellow. Through a series of unfortunate events related to an evil corporation headed by Malin Akerman, Johnson's best gorilla buddy gets exposed to what amounts to a growth serum that also stimulates aggression AND causes the infected to be compelled to follow a specific radio signal. Jesus, that's a lot of genetic engineering -- making an animal that can zero in on a radio frequency?
Thanks to the evil corporation, a 30-foot-gorilla is not the only problem. There's a giant wolf and a giant alligator! And they're all headed to... Chicago? Um, OK. The use of Chicago for the climax does give the viewer a great dialogue exchange in which the alligator is briefly mistaken for a submarine, causing the Idiot General defending Chicago to opine that "we don't have any subs in this area!" In Lake Michigan? What?
So there's lots of yelling and shooting and military strategy and tactics so inept that they make the military geniuses of the 1998 Godzilla reboot look like Rommel by comparison. Will The Actor Formerly Known As The Rock survive? Will he figure out how to get his gorilla pal back on the side of the angels in time for a climactic battle with the alligator and the wolf? Will all the carnage and death end with a 1960's and 70's-style 'Ha Ha Ha! Time for some quips!' bit?
Oh, well. Fun, dumb, and full of CGI. Recommended.
