Dwayne Johnson Action Blockbuster Dominating Netflix Rips Off An All-Time Classic
Dwayne Johnson has become synonymous with churning out a number of B movies in recent years, with memes and jokes circulating about the wrestler-turned-actor’s affinity for roaming through the jungle in identical-looking films. One 2018 movie, Skyscraper, finally removes Johnson from the jungle, only to place him squarely within a rip-off of Die Hard‘s Nakatomi Plaza. The film is currently available to stream on Netflix, in case you’d like to watch it and see for yourself how derivative it actually is.
Dwayne Johnson In Skyscraper
Skyscraper was written and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber, who previously collaborated with Dwayne Johnson on the 2016 movie Central Intelligence.
The film is mostly a run-of-the-mill Chinese market blockbuster, clearly made to appeal to the massive audience of moviegoers overseas.
The film was acquired by Legendary Entertainment specifically for the purpose of crafting a Chinese-set action adventure, meaning everything but the backdrop of the movie was essentially an afterthought.
Rounding Out The Cast
Dwayne Johnson is the central character in Skyscraper, leaving very little genuine characterization for any other actor in the film.
Neve Campbell, Chin Han, Roland Møller, Noah Taylor, and McKenna Roberts round out the main cast, though they may as well have been replaced with mannequins, as they essentially only exist to raise the stakes for Johnson’s character.
Skyscraper Plot
The plot of Skyscraper centers on Johnson’s Will Sawyer, a former marine who lost a leg while assisting the FBI with a hostage rescue mission involving a suicide bomber.
A decade after losing his leg in the line of duty, Sawyer works as a security consultant. He’s on a mission to inspect the world’s tallest skyscraper which was recently erected in Hong Kong.
Sawyer brings his wife and children to the tower with him, because that’s what motivated John McClane to succeed in Die Hard.
Terrorists Infiltrate The Skyscraper
Needless to say, a gang of international terrorists infiltrates the skyscraper, takes the civilians inside as their hostages, and prompts Sawyer to employ unorthodox guerrilla methods to disarm them and save the day.
Despite the film’s clear borrowing from Die Hard, a few unique elements are at play, such as a universal remote that controls nearly all electronics within the building and a few CGI-heavy action set-pieces that would have ballooned the budget of the 1988 film to unprecedented heights for the time.
Critical Reception To Dwayne Johnson In Skyscraper
Today, Skyscraper holds a 48 percent critic score on the review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, which puts the film firmly in ‘rotten’ territory.
Despite critics maligning the film for being too similar to its action blockbuster predecessors, Skyscraper still turned a hefty profit.
The movie took in over $304 million at the global box office against an estimated production budget of $125 million.
Streaming Skyscraper On Netflix
Even the promotional material for the film recognized that it was aping previous outings, as posters for Skyscraper were made in the style of both Die Hard and The Towering Inferno.
Overall, Skyscraper isn’t a bad movie, and Dwayne Johnson‘s performance in the film is actually rather compelling. If you’re interested in seeing the movie for yourself, Skyscraper is currently available to stream on Netflix.
