Skyscraper: Up in smoke

Skyscraper (2018) • View trailer 
1.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for action violence and fleeting strong language
By Derrick Bang

First Pacific Rim: Uprising, and now this colossal dud.

If they represent the future of collaborative Sino-American filmmaking, we’re all in a lot of trouble.

At about this point, Will (Dwayne Johnson) and Sarah (Neve Campbell) must be asking
themselves one question: How the hell can we escape this ridiculously stupid movie?

Skyscraper is an inept, Frankenstein’s monster of a movie, noteworthy mostly for the way writer/director Rawson Marshall Thurber shamelessly stole elements from far better sources: a little bit of Die Hard, a lot of Towering Inferno, a soupçon of Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol, and a particularly ludicrous lift of the hall of mirrors sequence, from 1947’s Lady from Shanghai.

Frankly, I’m amazed Thurber had the gall to claim scripting credit, since there isn’t a single original note in this cacophonous, failed symphony of an action flick.

This is the apotheosis of lowest-common-denominator junk. Big budgets do not guarantee big pictures.

On top of which, Dwayne Johnson needs to select his starring roles much more carefully. Between this ludicrously silly atrocity and spring’s Rampage, he’s 0 for 2 … and believing yourself bullet-proof is the fastest path to destroying a once-golden career.

A brief prologue introduces Johnson as FBI Hostage Rescue Team leader and U.S. war veteran Will Sawyer, as he heads a mission that goes horribly awry. Flash-forward a decade, and we discover that Will lost a leg but gained a family, thanks to having met Naval surgeon Dr. Sarah Sawyer (Neve Campbell) in the aftermath of said catastrophe.

He now assesses skyscraper security protocols on behalf of insurance companies, having recently been hired to give final clearance to The Pearl, Hong Kong’s fresh bid at erecting the world’s tallest skyscraper. It’s a masterpiece of Jim Bissell’s laughably overstated production design: 3,500 feet and 225 stories tall, towering over the Kowloon side of Victoria Harbor, complete with a six-story shopping mall, a 30-story interior park, and more than 100 floors of luxury residential suites.

And a giant golf ball on top.

(Okay, it’s actually — and I’m quoting the press notes here — “an enormous luminous sphere … inspired by the ancient Chinese fable The Dragon Pearl.”)

Still looks like a giant golf ball, resting atop an overstated glass-and-steel tee.

Ghost in the Shell: Lacks the proper spirit

Ghost in the Shell (2017) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG-13, for sci-fi action violence, dramatic intensity and chaste nudity
By Derrick Bang

The tantalizing nature of identity — of soul —  has again become a hot sci-fi topic, particularly in the wake of HBO’s recent expansion of Michael Crichton’s Westworld concept.

After her cyborg body is slightly damaged during a skirmish with nasty assassins,
Major (Scarlett Johansson, right) patiently waits while new artificial skin is grafted onto
her left arm, listening as Dr. Ouelet (Juliette Binoche) reminds her that, cyber-
enhancements notwithstanding, she's not invulnerable.

Since art so often mirrors life, it’s tempting to relate the current revival to the rampant insecurity, paranoia and uncertainty sweeping our nation: the rising doubt over what it truly means to be “American.”

Be that as it may, this new Western adaptation of the Japanese Ghost in the Shell franchise is quite timely, although I can’t help wondering what took so long. Masamune Shirow’s original manga graphic novel debuted in 1989, followed quickly by several sequels, a wildly popular 1995 animé adaptation (and several big-screen follow-ups), and a 2002 animé TV show (again with several continuation series).

All of them explored and expanded upon Shirow’s thoughtful observations about social evolution and its philosophical consequences, and particularly the manner in which rapidly advancing technology affects our concepts of consciousness and humanity.

Director Rupert Sanders’ new live-action film covers the same high-falutin’ philosophical territory, but this ho-hum Jamie Moss/William Wheeler script mostly resurrects a question that nagged at me, back when Ghost first materialized: I’ve always wondered to what degree Shirow might have been influenced by Robert Ludlum.

Because there’s no question that the core storyline is a cyberpunk spin on Ludlum’s The Bourne Identity, and the many books and films subsequently spawned by that 1980 novel.

Which explains why — despite this new film’s dazzling depiction of our mid-21st century future — the action-packed plot seems so familiar. To paraphrase a famous song from an equally famous musical, Looks: 10, originality: 3.

The story takes place in a Pan-Asian metropolis that feels like a cross between the cityscapes of Blade Runner and Minority Report: opulent high rises and corporate towers jostling for space alongside blocky apartment complexes whose futuristic lines cannot conceal the dilapidation that speaks of their overcrowded, working-class residents.

The most striking visuals are the massive holographic advertisements that fill every millimeter of available space: a shrewdly prophetic — and frankly terrifying — depiction of what we could expect, if the corporate thugs behind our already distracting LED billboards continue to bully (or bribe) city council members into compliance.