The action scenes of Skyscraper starring Dwayne Johnson are examined by a real firefighter, who grades them according to accuracy. In the 2018 film Skyscraper, directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber, Johnson plays security specialist Will Sawyer, who tries to save his family from a burning high-rise. A few significant action scenes are featured in the movie, which got mixed reviews. One of these involves Johnson’s character jumping from a crane to penetrate the tower that is named after it.
Firefighter Anthony Martinez recently dissects two sequences from Skyscraper—one including Johnson’s crane jump and the other involving an elevator—in an Insider video.Martinez claims that Johnson’s crane jump to Skyscraper’s The Pearl skyscraper is obviously not realistic in terms of how firemen would enter a flaming high-rise, and he utilizes the elevator scene to impart some crucial fire safety information. See his thoughts on the film below, along with his rating out of ten:
“We wouldn’t act in that way. We actually do use traveling from one building to another, but never on a high-rise—that’s not how he’s going to do it. Instead, we move between low-rise multiple dwellings and buildings that are nearby.
They could certainly survive such a fire if all the safety mechanisms were removed from the elevator. However, elevator safety measures are numerous. The brakes are designed to automatically lock in the event that a cable breaks, whether it is falling or ascending. It is never appropriate for a person to use an elevator during a fire. In order to truly get away from the fire, you should take the stairs. In the event of an active fire, the firemen assigned to the outside vent will seize control of the elevators and bring them back to the lobby level.
“I’d rate this scene a four.” Did the movie Skyscraper suffer from its inaccuracies?
The Dwayne Johnson Car Didn’t Get Much Use.
Skyscraper’s first teasers hinted at a grim, Die Hard-style adventure. However, they also emphasized Johnson’s crane jump, reiterating that it would have some fantastical moments and not be unduly grounded. Though the film’s realism wasn’t the main issue, Skyscraper received at best mixed reviews. The film ultimately came across as too formulaic and conventional, and as a result, it received a dismal 48% on Rotten Tomatoes.
However, Skyscraper had a more acceptable audience score of 68% and performed better with general audiences. Sadly, this was insufficient to turn the movie into a box office success. Despite being a huge failure at the home box office, Skyscraper finally made $304.9 million globally thanks to strong international sales. With a $125 million budget and additional millions for promotion and press, the film was most likely targeting a break-even threshold of about $312 million. However, it’s probable that Skyscraper’s eventual profitability came from digital sales and rentals.
Skyscraper’s poor box office performance is most likely not due to its realism problems. For instance, despite its absurd premise, Johnson’s action film Rampage, in which animals transform into enormous versions of themselves and wreak havoc on Chicago, did rather well at the box office. In fact, Skyscraper might have used a little more humor; as far as Denzel Washington films go, it might have felt overly solemn and subdued.
