In the next sequence, we see him sporting a prosthetic leg and already married to Neve Campbell as Sarah, a feisty military doctor who have served in combat. Together with their twin son and daughter, they’re all in Hongkong where Will is hired as a security expert for a private company. His client is the tallest building in the world, the skyscraper called The Pearl, with 225 stories with different environments. Actually, from the outside, this huge monstrosity looks more like a big snake with a ball on its open mouth.

The movie is a combination of past popcorn hits like “Towering Inferno” and the first “Die Hard”. The action-thriller is written and directed with much flair by Rawson Marshall Thurber, who has directed The Rock before in “Central Intelligence”, an action-comedy. In “Skyscraper”, he really amps the action spectacle with over-the-top sequences and convincing CGI in this delightful piece of escapist entertainment.


But of course, the most thrilling scene is the one that we see on the trailer, with The Rock shown climbing a crane then defying gravity as he jumps into the burning building and later climbing and going around the tower’s glass exterior with duct tape wrapped around his hands and saying to himself: “This is stupid.”
And you might want to agree with him but then, that will spoil the fun and the best thing is for you to just suspend your disbelief and enjoy the ride. After all, The Rock’s bigger-than-life persona and bigger-is-better charisma make the cartoonish outlandishness of the fantastic stunts quite easier to take.
The Rock performs his role admirably with all the derring-do and athleticism it requires and his fierce commitment to his role as Will Sawyer. And Neve Campbell also acquits herself believably as his wife-in-distress. Her character is given some heft and dimension, with her fighting some thugs up to very end and figuring out how to put out the raging fire in the building. It’s good that she and The Rock are given enough sweet scenes together to establish some credible chemistry between them in their interracial romance just before the Pearl goes up in flames, so we’re adequately invested in what happens to them as a couple.