Skyscraper (2018)

yipee ki yay mister falcon, this opens in 2 days

6.5/10. Went in with low expectations but enjoyed it. Its a dumb, everything-is-predictable summer action pulp movie but it was fun. I enjoyed it more than Rampage, which really got dragged down by a muted Rock, bad villains and terrible co-stars. This one was pretty much 100% The Rock being The Rock and everyone else was used very lightly which worked well. His co-star was the awesome building which was a fucking awesome building. Movie is very heavy on the Chinese touch, like at one point someone has to search the internet for something and they go to baidu.com instead of googling it like a normal person, must be either baidu promotion (like TV shows that show bing or surface tablets) or chinese govt not wanting their citizens to use google.

Also one weird thing, I guess chinese audiences must love face reactions or something because there are a FUCK ton of just randos "ooooh.... ahhhh" and other face reactions to what the Rock is doing, way more than any other movie I have ever seen. Just was weird.

You could definitely see the underlying roots of Die Hard in this movie, worth a watch for any fan of The Rock, action movies, or skyscrapers.

The bad lady villain is fucking smoking and my new lady crush, that haircut is tiiiiight. Byron Mann (the "asian" body main guy in Altered Carbon) is also in as a detective.

This was not terrible but it was definitely geared more towards an asian audience I thought. Sort of like a cross between Towering Inferno and Die Hard honestly. Not bad, not great. Passable Rock movie, 6/10.

Movie is ok at best I guess, but.... you would think it would be one of these big sino-american production done to get fresh chinese money and get distributed in China without being hit by the foreign movies quota, but, as far as I can tell, not a yuan was put in this and the large asian cast is not made of local stars (the taiwanese actress in the above picture is the only one that had some local career before going to Hollywood). Very strange. It feels like they wanted to find some chinese co-producer, did not find one and made the movie anyway!

Other than the Hong Kong setting, it's also the plot that makes me think that. The traditional story would be a version of the tower of Babel, with the chinese billionaire being punished for his hubris, but here there is none of that: the billionaire (a figure big chinese producers can identify with) is basically the coolest of cool guys and the antagonists are criminals hampering the creation of ambitious projects. It's a bit weird, but in a way it's more positive message than the one of the tower of Babel!

Szlia said:

Movie is ok at best I guess, but.... you would think it would be one of these big sino-american production done to get fresh chinese money and get distributed in China without being hit by the foreign movies quota, but, as far as I can tell, not a yuan was put in this and the large asian cast is not made of local stars (the taiwanese actress in the above picture is the only one that had some local career before going to Hollywood). Very strange. It feels like they wanted to find some chinese co-producer, did not find one and made the movie anyway!

Other than the Hong Kong setting, it's also the plot that makes me think that. The traditional story would be a version of the tower of Babel, with the chinese billionaire being punished for his hubris, but here there is none of that: the billionaire (a figure big chinese producers can identify with) is basically the coolest of cool guys and the antagonists are criminals hampering the creation of ambitious projects. It's a bit weird, but in a way it's more positive message than the one of the tower of Babel!

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Its an interesting one financing wise actually. Legendary wont he bid for the film and it came attached with The Rock AND the Director which is common enough but this was before the movie was even filmed. This was only done because of where the film was to take place (Hong Kong). This wasn't a film for Western audiences, it was for China and its done quite well there. Expect more of this in the future as the Chinese audience loves these big cheesy spectacle films .

I wonder who actually put the money in though, China barred banks from lending money outside China mid 2017 so I don't think they paid for it

Juvarisx your post made me google it and a key info that was missing surfaced: Legendary won the bid, but Legendary is owned by a chinese conglomerate, the Wanda Group, since januray 2016! So I guess it is after all a chinese production, even if indirectly. That makes the cast a bit odd then, but maybe they thought it was not worth the money and trouble to bring some famous chinese actors to Vancouver especially for parts that are mostly in english.