A near-functional premise is brutally shot-down by unimaginative, clichéd storytelling in Skyscraper – a supposed, high-octane techno action-thriller about a security consultant who has to save his family and a billionaire from a burning building.

The building is a state-of-the-art technical wonder – the tallest commercial architecture in the world – that is taken over by villains. The hero of the day (Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson) is an ex-FBI hostage team leader who lost one leg in a bomb explosion. The metal leg he is outfitted with becomes an arsenal in fight scenes that seem almost parodic of Loony Tunes cartoons (and to think, those cartoons were already parodic in nature).

Johnson, who is also one of the producers of the film, has done better in action, character-play and comedy. Director Rawson Marshall Thurber, who directed Johnson and Kevin Hart in Central Intelligence last year, isn’t on the top of his game either as a director andscreenwriter (now you know who to blame for most of the bad creative calls Skyscraper makes).

The screenplay – an appalling cross between The Towering Inferno and the first Die Hard – kills its sci-fi-actioner potential with the subtlety of an axe-wielding psychopath born with bad eyesight. The only thing one recognises in this carcass is Neve Campbell, who plays Johnson’s intelligent, gung-ho wife.

Watch the movie on the big-screen if you love cursing yourself at the end of the month, when there isn’t much left in your bank account.•