Skyscraper
A retired FBI agent, now a security consultant (Dwayne Johnson), is consulting on a 240-floor Hong Kong building when terrorists set fire to it. Oh, and his wife (Neve Campbell) and kids are trapped inside. Oh yeah, and one more thing: he has a prosthetic leg. Director Rawson Marshall Thurber’s script is ridiculous and unbelievable, a wannabe Towering Die Hard Inferno. CGI stunts are constant, outlandish and hilarious. When are people like Thurber going to realize that this doesn’t cut it? Genuine excitement comes from real people (whether stars or stunt doubles) really doing things; without that, junk movies like this are just photo-realistic Wile E. Coyote cartoons. Johnson’s charisma lifts things a notch or two above the bottom of the barrel, but he’s not a magician—and he can’t really fly.
If their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain’t heard nothing yet.
Published on 07.19.18
Rapper Boots Riley, making his feature writing/directing debut, pulls out all the stops in a pro-union, anti-corporate gonzo fantasmagoria that becomes wilder by the minute.
Published on 07.12.18
It’s enjoyable enough, even for those who would rather eat broken glass than sit through another elephantine CGI-fest from the damned Marvel Comics Universe.
Published on 07.12.18
Diverting (if familiar) portrait of parenthood, and especially motherhood, as nothing less than hell on Earth, requiring the superhuman—even supernatural—to cope with it.
Published on 07.12.18
There’s nothing to do but endure it, pray for release, and cherish the respite until Hotel Transylvania 4 comes along in 2021.
Published on 07.12.18