SKYSCRAPER Review

So, you know Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, right? Of course you do. Remember his movie from three months ago? Rampage? The one about The Rock stopping a giant gorilla from destroying Chicago? Maybe you do and maybe you don’t (that could be due either to the fact you didn’t see it or because it’s pretty forgettable, but I digress). Regardless one of the news stories that broke around the time of that movie’s release was the fact Johnson had the screenwriters re-write the climax of the film that had the genetically modified George die. The way this was re-written was that George instead faked his death so as to play a trick on Johnson’s character. Classic, huh? Johnson wanted this done so that the audience wouldn’t go home on a dour note as they came to the movies and to that type of movie especially to enjoy light-hearted entertainment and not to see a CGI gorilla die. Well, that same guy who mandated the monkey didn’t die in his last movie opens his new movie with a flashback scene that features a suicide bomber blowing himself up and murdering his own wife and kids along with him so, happy movie-going! If you consider this a spoiler, I apologize, but this plot point isn’t brought up to spoil, but rather to open up the conversation about how from the word go Skyscraper essentially misses the mark it should have been shooting for the whole time. Why did it need to begin in this fashion? How was that decision going to be justified? I kept asking myself these questions as the film continued to march on even though in the first few expository scenes following that opening it became very clear as to why Johnson’s character was witness to and injured in the murder/suicide spurred by a father that included the unnecessary deaths of his wife and two young children-one boy and one girl. The movie quickly jumps forward a decade and establishes that Johnson’s Will Sawyer has since married the surgeon that saved his life that fateful night, Sarah (Neve Campbell), and that they’ve had a set of twins together-one boy and one girl. It is clear Sawyer will once again come face to face with the same predicament he faced in the opening sequence and will have to once again choose his actions very carefully in a scenario that could just as easily swing in one direction as it could another. I get it and I think most movie-goers who see more than three movies a year or have at least seen an action movie in their lifetime will get it, but the foreshadowing isn’t the issue as in all actuality the script, from writer/director Rawson Marshall Thurber (Dodgeball, We’re the Millers, Central Intelligence), is especially symmetrical and pays off each of its set-ups quite nicely. More, the issue with opening your supposed summer popcorn movie among summer popcorn movies with such a scene is the tone it implies and the precedent it sets for the rest of your movie. Due to this decision, Skyscraper never recovers from being this bleak and bloody actioner with an unnecessarily high body count when all it really had to be was Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson stopping a giant fire from destroying his family as well as the world’s newest and tallest building.

THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS Review

First things first I have no real knowledge concerning the kung fu genre. I have never watched much of the landmark films in its canon as I generally wasn't interested in what these types of film had to offer so, if one is looking for an expert opinion on The Man with the Iron Fists you are reading in the wrong place. This is simply an overview and opinion of the film as a film in general and not in comparison to what standards might have been held for in relation to other martial arts films. There is a certain type of vibe you expect a film to have as well when it is labeled with the infamous "Quentin Tarantino Presents" banner though and I am familiar with that directors work. While this is a film I will likely never lay eyes on again I cannot be mad at it either. It delivers everything you expect from it and probably a little more, but as far as really going for it, really getting it and exuding that quality of self-aware honesty and ridiculous characters and violence the film sometimes seems to be trying a little too hard, then again maybe that is the point. That is what a film so intent on honoring the style of this genre does seem to deserve and the effort is clear in every aspect as writer/director/composer RZA has thrown himself into this world and developed a universe for his story to take place. It is evident the man has a real knack for tone and pacing. The film is a brisk hour and forty minutes and it speeds by feeling more like a Saturday morning show than a feature length film. In the end though, the film feels more slight than epic and it should have at least emulated this feeling in one area or another. It makes a good amount of connections but is unable to land all its punches.