Dwayne Johnson dabbles in some middle age self-doubt in his latest movie, set inside a 225-storey tower in Hong Kong.
The hulking, muscle-bound actor is known for bringing slapstick smarts to comedy action films (google him bouncing berries off his gigantic pecs in Journey 2: The Mysterious Island), but he plays an amputee in a decidedly more sullen mood here.
He's a retired cop who once led hostage rescue missions, until a botched job ended in multiple casualties and lost him a leg.
He's never forgiven himself.
On his first day as a security consultant in the world's tallest building, however, he gets a shot at redemption when a group of heavily armed psychos sets the tower alight, trapping its reclusive billionaire owner (Chin Han) in a hi-tech penthouse suite, and Will's wife Sarah (Neve Campbell) and two children in their mid-level apartment.
Johnson goes from vulnerable dad to rampaging papa bear as he races against the clock to avert tragedy, at one point even turning his prosthetic limb into a life-saving prop.
There's the DNA of mid-70s disaster classics like The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno in every pixel, but Skyscraper is more homage than daring reinvention.
It does what it says on the tin: there are improbable leaps onto narrow ledges and fire roaring up lift shafts.
There's gunplay and wrestling, too, and at least a couple of interesting villains: a beautiful female assassin played by Australian Taiwanese actor and model Hannah Quinlivan and a cold-blooded mercenary played by rugged Danish actor Roland Møller (Land of Mine), who's the mastermind of the operation.
Unfortunately, writer director Rawson Marshall Thurber does Møller a disservice by failing to carve out a more memorable role for him, and in a way this flaw is emblematic of the film itself.
