Well, if you are a fan of The Rock this is a decent enough high octane action, disaster and special effects movie. If not, well then you probably have to be a pretty big fan of special effects and action to overlook its weak points.

Let’s start with the good stuff. One, it is The Rock (yes I am a fan) although he certainly doesn’t come out at his best in this movie. Personally I could do without the artificial leg crap but it didn’t bother me too much in the end. It didn’t really add anything except some silly (and unrealistic scenes) though.

Then we have the action and the special effects. They were as good as you would expect from a multi million dollar action movie. At least I enjoyed them. I really liked the design of the Skyscraper. I thought it was booth cool and beautiful. I kind of would like to see it built in real life.

Was the movie derivative? Well of course it can be said to be derivative! How many movies with burning Skyscrapers and bad guys hi-jacking them can you make before it becomes derivative after all? The first movie named Skyscraper was made in 1928 for Christ sake. It didn’t bother me at all.

Now for the not so good. The movie was hugely predictable. I mean, you could tell who the bad guys were from the first scene they were in. Especially the rat faced jerk Mr Pierce. The main bad guy? Well, he was no Hans Gruber that’s for sure. More like a common thug. The movie really lacked a bad guy with some charisma. Overall, most of the movie from start to finish was really a no-surprise-there event from the first bad guy entering the scene to the rebooting of the systems.

Then we have the realism factor. I do not expect an action and special effects movie to be realistic but there are some limits. Sawyer climbing around on the outside of the building (with one leg remember) in the updraft from 50 or so burning levels was just nonsense. Also, a building burning that much and that long and yet all the electrical wiring and plumbing still working was a bit too much. The absolutely worst offence though was how everyone magically survived sitting in the middle of the fire being extinguished by the release of halon gas (or some equivalent). That just brings stupidity (or maybe laziness) in script writing to a whole new level.

So, to sum it up, this move could have been a lot better. To me it was saved by The Rock and my love of special effects loaded action movies.