By this point in the story, we’ve already seen Johnson’s former FBI agent Will Sawyer botch a hostage negotiation, lose his leg and gain a Navy surgeon wife (welcome back, Neve Campbell). That’s the money shot of Skyscraper, his summer blockbuster that’s one part disaster flick, two parts Die Hard and all parts international market-friendly star vehicle – you could have named this movie Holy Shit The Rock Just Free-Jumped Into a Fucking Flaming Skyscraper at an Incredible Height! and it would be 100-percent accurate. Which, it should be mentioned, is on fire and full of terrorists. And push comes to shove, Johnson will painstakingly climb to the top of a massive construction crane and elude a Hong Kong SWAT team in order to sprint-leap into the 100th floor of a 225-story tall building. He will punch and kick and, if need be, throw a prosthetic leg at you. Put his wife and/or kids in harm’s way and watch the man spring into action. And nothing inspires a Johnson character to channel both of those things at once than the need to save his family. But the keystone of his persona is the ability to suggest that he’s somehow a salt-of-the-earth everyman and a pumped-up superhero, the kind of guy who’d have a beer with you in between steering busloads of orphans away from danger with his bare hands. He has crack comic timing, a preposterous amount of screen presence, acting chops – see: Pain and Gain (2013) – and a body that suggests he may have spent some time inside a gym. (Things he has not saved: the reputation of plaster casts as a durable item and that Baywatch flick.) An informal list of people, places and other miscellany that the man still known by many as “The Rock” has protected, defended and/or rescued: a young Polynesian woman, part of the Egyptian empire, ancient Greece, San Francisco, fellow video-game avatars, the World Wrestling Federation, the professional secrets of tooth fairies, a gang of internationally wanted outlaw street racers, Kevin Hart (numerous times), an albino gorilla, humanity, several franchises, the concept of the action hero specifically and movie stardom in general. It’s sort of his signature thing, really.
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