Framed and on the run, a former FBI agent must save his family from a blazing fire in the world’s tallest building.
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Credits: TheMovieDb.
Film Cast:
- Will Sawyer: Dwayne Johnson
- Sarah Sawyer: Neve Campbell
- Zhao Long Ji: Chin Han
- Kores Botha: Roland Møller
- Mr. Pierce: Noah Taylor
- Inspector Wu: Byron Mann
- Ben: Pablo Schreiber
- Georgia Sawyer: McKenna Roberts
- Henry Sawyer: Noah Cottrell
- Xia: Hannah Quinlivan
- Ajani Okeke: Adrian Holmes
- Sergeant Han: Elfina Luk
- Ray: Kevin Rankin
- Ray’s Wife: Gretal Montgomery
- Ray’s Son: Jett Klyne
- Ray’s Daughter: Kayden Magnuson
- Suit #1: Byron Lawson
- Botha’s Thug #1: Jason William Day
- Botha’s Thug #2: Ryan Handley
- Botha’s Thug #3: Sean Kohnke
- Botha’s Thug #4: Shawn Stewart
- Shady Man: Brian Ho
- News Camera Man: Nelson Wong
- Operations Technician: Mike Li
- Windbreaker Man: Colin Corrigan
- Hostage Rescue Commander: Omari Newton
- Hostage Negotiator: Venus Terzo
- On-Scene Commander: Paul McGillion
- Skinny Hacker: Matt O’Leary
- Fire Chief Sheng: Tzi Ma
- Building Voice (voice): Tina Tong
- HKP Officer #1: Carlo Yu
- HKP Officer #2: Dimitry Tsoy
- HKP Officer #3: Allen Keng
- Penthouse Guard #1: Sam Yunussov
- Penthouse Guard #2: Paul Wu
- Maintenance Technician: Glenn Chow
- Helicopter Pilot: Rob ‘Sluggo’ Boyce
- Police Sniper: Aaron Au
- News Reporter #1: Grace Wang
- News Reporter #2: Marcus Sim
- Hong Kong Newscaster: Rene Wang
- Chinese Newscaster #1: Kathy Wu
- Chinese Newscaster #2: Lawrence Chau
- Chinese Newscaster #3: Evan Lai
- Arabic Speaking Newscaster: Shamel Hashish
- British Newscaster: Matthew Wolf
- French Newscaster: Fabio Tassone
- American Newscaster #1: Leanne Suter
- American Newscaster #2: Rick Chambers
- American Newscaster #3: Lasaundra Gibson
- Zhao Interviewer: Wendy Jacobson
- Ferry Princess: Sarah K. Thurber
- Swedish Newscaster (uncredited): Malin Barr
- Ben’s Neighbour (uncredited): Vivian Full
- Asian Lady (uncredited): Beatrice King
- Asian Hipster (uncredited): Hung Huynh
Film Crew:
- Executive Producer: Eric McLeod
- Director of Photography: Robert Elswit
- Casting: Sarah Halley Finn
- Production Design: James D. Bissell
- Producer: Beau Flynn
- Set Decoration: Lin MacDonald
- Art Direction: Grant Van Der Slagt
- Music: Steve Jablonsky
- Producer: Dwayne Johnson
- Supervising Art Director: Helen Jarvis
- Music Supervisor: Peter Afterman
- Music Supervisor: Margaret Yen
- Costume Design: Luca Mosca
- Art Direction: Cheryl Marion
- Producer: Rawson Marshall Thurber
- Armorer: Ric Walkington
- Digital Intermediate: Stefan Sonnenfeld
- Editor: Julian Clarke
- Aerial Director of Photography: Dylan Goss
- Producer: Mary Parent
- Editor: Michael L. Sale
- Line Producer: Chen On Chu
- Second Unit Director: J.J. Perry
- ADR Voice Casting: Mark Sussman
- Makeup Department Head: Rebeccah Delchambre
- First Assistant Director: James Bitonti
- Executive Producer: Dany Garcia
- Executive Producer: Eric Hedayat
- Makeup Designer: Connie Parker
- Foley: Dan O’Connell
- Boom Operator: Tom Hartig
- Special Effects Supervisor: Joel Whist
- Still Photographer: Kimberly French
- Dialogue Editor: John C. Stuver
- Co-Producer: Petra Holtorf
- Foley Editor: D. Chris Smith
- Script Supervisor: Kimi Webber
- Steadicam Operator: Norbert Kaluza
- Best Boy Electric: Niall Fraser
- Steadicam Operator: Colin Anderson
- Assistant Art Director: Shannon Courte
- Second Unit Director of Photography: Duane Manwiller
- Digital Intermediate: Erik Rogers
- Unit Publicist: Lee Anne Muldoon
- Aerial Director of Photography: John Trapman
- Property Master: Dean Eilertson
- Rigging Gaffer: Sean Oxenbury
- Foley Editor: Jessie Pariseau
- Script Supervisor: Joecy Shepherd
- Assistant Costume Designer: Lindsey Kear
- Key Makeup Artist: Andrea Manchur
- Dolly Grip: Christopher Walsh
- Digital Intermediate: Ian Sullivan
- Executive Producer: Hiram Garcia
- VFX Supervisor: Craig Hammack
- Co-Producer: Wendy Jacobson
- Ager/Dyer: Briana Scott
- Assistant Director: Thomas Ma
- Costume Design: Ann Foley
- Costume Supervisor: Jessica Lythgoe-Green
- Assistant Costume Designer: Kevin Knight
- ADR Voice Casting: Patty Connolly
- Set Decoration: William M. DeBiasio
- Production Manager: John Catron
- Armorer: Rob Fournier
- Rigging Grip: Rod Haney
- Armorer: Jeremy Muir
- Boom Operator: Jarret Read
- Boom Operator: Tysen Schieber
- Casting Associate: Krista Husar
- Construction Coordinator: John Dale
- First Assistant Editor: Sean Thompson
- Creature Technical Director: Eric Jennings
- Makeup Artist: Merc Arceneaux
- Visual Effects Editor: James Mann
- Aerial Coordinator: Kelsey Wheeler
- Aerial Coordinator: Frédéric North
- Visual Effects Producer: Linda Luong
- Visual Effects Coordinator: Geraldine Morales
- Second Assistant Director: Gurjit Chohan
- Third Assistant Director: Nathan Kay
- Key Grip: Kim Olsen
- Production Supervisor: Bliss McDonald
- Gaffer: Mark G. Alexander
- Animal Coordinator: Paul Jasper
- Assistant Production Manager: Teodora Ilie
- Art Department Coordinator: Lauren Geaghan
- Special Effects Supervisor: Dan Cervin
- First Assistant Director: Shamess Shute
- Aerial Camera: Brad McGregor
- Drone Operator: Patrick Weir
- Casting Assistant: Djinous Rowling
- Sound Re-Recording Mixer: Noyan Cosarer
- Art Direction: Craig Humphries
- Makeup Artist: Ronnie Sidhu
- Conceptual Illustrator: Brian Cunningham
- Draughtsman: Austin Chuqiao Wang
- Animation: Kyle Winkelman
- CG Supervisor: Sepp Sonntag
- Creature Technical Director: Gem Ronn Cadiz
- Matchmove Supervisor: Jason Marlow
- Visual Effects Coordinator: Katie Plumer
- Visual Effects Coordinator: Neethu Vijayakumar
- Visual Effects Supervisor: Bernhard Kimbacher
- Lighting Technician: Joe Papp
- Techno Crane Operator: Nazariy Hatak
- Set Costumer: Christina Petford
- Boom Operator: Paul Romo
- First Assistant Director: Justin Muller
- Production Supervisor: Alice S. Kim
- Stunts: Kevin Haaland
- Assistant Director: Avery Fane
- Assistant Director: D. Joanne Malo
- Additional Director of Photography: Michael Bendner
- Assistant Director Trainee: Tatiana Ragsdale
- Manager of Operations: Jackie Kroopf
- Assistant Production Manager: Chor Chun Lau
- Post-Production Manager: Yugo Nakamura
- Second Second Assistant Director: Benjamin Cairns
- Assistant Director Trainee: Calsey Diggens
- Assistant Director: Krista Martin
- Script Editor: Thomas Brungardt
- VFX Artist: Jared Hasselbach
- Key Makeup Artist: Joanna Mireau
Movie Reviews:
- Jedi Burrell: You might expect a former FBI agent to be able to handle a gun, or protect himself at gunpoint. But you sure as hell don’t expect a doctor to, and yet, Sarah Sawyer can not only steal a gun pointed at her, she can stop a burning building’s fire without even being in the building!
Will Sawyer’s posed with a challenge when the tablet that he was for some reason given with full control of the security system and just about everything else about the building, gets stolen, the building set on fire, and his family stuck above the fire with little means to get out.
Will, who is now a suspect, takes it upon himself to enter the burning building, get his family, and leave the burning building. This isn’t as easy as that sounds, because there’s a MacGuffin to be gotten and the people that set the building on fire will stop at nothing to get it. Oh, and did I mention **he only has one leg!**
_Minor spoilers ahead._
Skyscraper was extremely predictable, the only thing I didn’t see coming was the fact that they wasted five minutes of our time showing Will telling Sarah to turn off and back on her phone to fix it, just to set up the ending where Sarah turns off and back on the building to stop the fire.
The one thing I did enjoy from this film was near the ending when they’re in _The Pearl_, but you don’t watch a movie for a single scene.
Rawson Thurber should stick to comedy, where he has experience. This is a waste of the $125,000,000 it took to make it, and it’s a waste of the $12 to watch it. Skip this one.
- Per Gunnar Jonsson: Well, if you are a fan of The Rock this is a decent enough high octane action, disaster and special effects movie. If not, well then you probably have to be a pretty big fan of special effects and action to overlook its weak points.
Let’s start with the good stuff. One, it is The Rock (yes I am a fan) although he certainly doesn’t come out at his best in this movie. Personally I could do without the artificial leg crap but it didn’t bother me too much in the end. It didn’t really add anything except some silly (and unrealistic scenes) though.
Then we have the action and the special effects. They were as good as you would expect from a multi million dollar action movie. At least I enjoyed them. I really liked the design of the Skyscraper. I thought it was booth cool and beautiful. I kind of would like to see it built in real life.
Was the movie derivative? Well of course it can be said to be derivative! How many movies with burning Skyscrapers and bad guys hi-jacking them can you make before it becomes derivative after all? The first movie named Skyscraper was made in 1928 for Christ sake. It didn’t bother me at all.
Now for the not so good. The movie was hugely predictable. I mean, you could tell who the bad guys were from the first scene they were in. Especially the rat faced jerk Mr Pierce. The main bad guy? Well, he was no Hans Gruber that’s for sure. More like a common thug. The movie really lacked a bad guy with some charisma. Overall, most of the movie from start to finish was really a no-surprise-there event from the first bad guy entering the scene to the rebooting of the systems.
Then we have the realism factor. I do not expect an action and special effects movie to be realistic but there are some limits. Sawyer climbing around on the outside of the building (with one leg remember) in the updraft from 50 or so burning levels was just nonsense. Also, a building burning that much and that long and yet all the electrical wiring and plumbing still working was a bit too much. The absolutely worst offence though was how everyone magically survived sitting in the middle of the fire being extinguished by the release of halon gas (or some equivalent). That just brings stupidity (or maybe laziness) in script writing to a whole new level.
So, to sum it up, this move could have been a lot better. To me it was saved by The Rock and my love of special effects loaded action movies.
- Gimly: _Die Hard in a (X)_ is a pretty classic movie formula, it doesn’t get as much play now as it did in the 80s and 90s, but we can still reliably expect at **least** one every couple of years, even now. But when it’s _Die Hard in a Skyscraper_… I mean… That’s just _Die Hard_. Even _Die Hard 2_ had the sensibility to be _Die Hard in an Airport_.
Except that, no, this isn’t just _Die Hard_, because (and I don’t think anyone would be shocked to find this) it’s not as good. I mean I love The Rock and all, but come on.
Final rating:★★ – Had some things that appeal to me, but a poor finished product.
- John Chard: It’s an ultimate frame of mind movie.
It is what it is, it’s Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as the hero of the tale who has to achieve the impossible when the world’s tallest building catches fire. His family is trapped in said building inferno and there’s bad guys running around creating trouble.
So sit down and get ready for fantastically high energy action scenes and hold your breath peril sequences. You have to be in the right frame of mind for this type of entertainment, to understand it’s a blockbusting popcorn piece made to take you out of the real world, it does not have cranial splendours or social commentary.
It’s great to have Neve Campbell back kicking butt, rising above just being a female token waiting to be saved by her heroic husband. And of course if you can’t smile at the makers having Johnson being handicapped with an artificial leg – and still turning into Usain Bolt for various scenes – then this isn’t the film for you.
Some way short of the classy verve of The Towering Inferno or the brutal brilliance of Die Hard, this does its job handsomely enough for the like minded souls after some escapist carnage. 6/10
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