I rented and watched Skyscraper starring Dwayne Johnson and Neve Campbell. It’s another film that is in the theme of The Towering Inferno, but in this case they decided it needed an active human villain rather than simple hubris. The film has some good moments of VFX, and the concept itself of a mostly self-sufficient skyscraper as a vertical community is a long-held one in science fiction. All in all, not bad for some action entertainment.
So what is with the title, you are likely wondering. Dwayne Johnson’s character is an amputee: his left leg is missing below the knee. To his credit, Dwayne Johnson worked with an amputee to develop the characterization of acting a prosthetic leg. He and the director wanted to respect amputees with a faithful performance.
Here’s my problem. There is a special feature entry called “Inspiration”. In it, Dwayne Johnson discusses his process of researching and preparing for the role, including talking about the man who helped him. They also talked about how they really wanted to portray an amputee action hero. Representation is important. But Dwayne Johnson also took time to build up the man he used as a reference and a coach on how to act like an amputee. Why not just use this man who was an athlete in his own right? It would have saved a lot on CGI for not having to remove the actor’s leg in the shots the prosthesis is visible or disconnected from the leg. Maybe the amputation decision was only made after Dwayne Johnson was hired for the role. Maybe they offered the role to an amputee actor and they didn’t want the part.
Inspiration porn is any situation in which able-bodied people recognize the struggle or at least existence of people with various disabilities to make the able-bodied people feel like good people. So in this case, the key question is who is being honored: amputees and wounded warriors for their sacrifice and to give them a reminder that they can be badasses; or Dwayne Johnson and the crew of Skyscraper for making the action hero an amputee and going to great lengths to get Dwayne Johnson to act like someone who had a leg severed?