E-Paper
Quite the inferno: Skyscraper review by Rashid Irani
A former hostage negotiator must storm a fiery building to save his family. It’s not a bad ride, if you can check your disbelief at the door.
If you enjoyed Die Hard, you’ll probably like Skyscraper well enough. It always makes for riveting viewing when action icons must risk their lives to protect their loved ones.
This time it’s the turn of Dwayne Johnson aka The Rock to leap into a raging inferno when his wife (Neve Campbell) and two children (McKenna Roberts-Noah Cottrell) get trapped above a fire line.
The FBI hostage negotiator-turned-security specialist storms The Pearl, a state-of-the-art Hong Kong skyscraper three times the height of the Empire State Building, after it is torched by a band of baddies. Battling daunting odds and an ineffectual local police force, the man-mountain must somehow figure out a way to get his family out of the building before it burns to the ground.
From the first scene to the rollercoaster finale, Skyscraper is packed with death-defying stunts and apocalyptic CGI-enhanced imagery. The ensemble performances are serviceable at best. But if you can check your disbelief at the door, you should be able to enjoy the fiery fandango while it lasts.
