When Arnold Schwarzenegger symbolically passed the action-hero torch to Dwayne (née “The Rock”) Johnson in 2003’s The Rundown, the big-budget Skyscraper is the type of high-concept behemoth I would have expected right out of the gate. It’s a Die Hard imitator, after all.

Having lost a leg in a domestic-disturbance call, Johnson’s Will Sawyer has traded the FBI for the calmer occupation of safety and security assessor. His latest assignment is consulting on The Pearl, a 3,000-feet, 225-story tower — or in one side character’s lingo, “a $65 billion chimney” — in Hong Kong. On the day of his big PowerPoint presentation, a terrorist group sets fire to the middle of it, endangering the lives of the only family who lives there: Will’s, naturally, in the form of a wife (Scream queen Neve Campbell) and two kids who get way too excited about panda hats.

Complicating his goal of saving his loved ones? The terrorists frame Will for the blaze and pursue him to get hold of a MacGuffin-serving tablet. No matter the number of reasons, you won’t care.

The undemanding premise has been sickened into soullessness by writer/director Rawson Marshall Thurber, reteaming with Johnson after the not-terrible Central Intelligence. This should be an easy lay-up for his superstar, but an absence of humor diminishes the man’s considerable charm. Worse, the action scenes ring strictly remedial — well-shot without being choreographed to engage.

In all, Skyscraper is not Johnson’s Die Hard. But it is his A Good Day to Die Hard, which I wish upon no one. —Rod Lott

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The first two Maniac Cop flicks, while not great cinema, are pretty fun movies to waste the afternoon with. But Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence? Yeesh!

Mere hours after Matt Cordell, the undead maniac cop in question, is laid to rest, he’s resurrected by a voodoo priest for reasons never fully explained. Now Cordell skulks around corners and other badly lit areas for much of the film.

That leaves us with Robert Davi, back as Detective McKinney, throwing around terrible one-liners and even worse come-ons, mostly to an anonymous doctor treating his cop friend — and maniac cop paramour — who was recently shot by, of all people, Jackie Earle Haley and his pharmacist girlfriend.

Before you can scream “What the hell is going on here!” at your television set, somehow Davi and the doctor end up on city streets with Cordell driving a flaming machine of vehicular death. The film’s main selling point, while at first is pretty cool, wears out its welcome out after a repetitive few minutes as the running time is stretched as far as it can possibly go.

Over the course of my life, I had many chances to watch this Cop entry and never did, as something always seemed “off” about it. Apparently, I was right: The rights were bought up by the absolutely terrible Joel Soisson, with a threadbare plot by Larry Cohen — written while he was driving! — and not directed by William Lustig, who walked off after a day of shooting. It’s now credited to Alan Smithee.

In the end, the only people looking like they’re having any fun are Davi and the Maniac Cop, Robert Z’Dar. If I needed something positive to say, good for them. I hope those paychecks were all right, even though I doubt it. —Louis Fowler

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From one Maniac to another — a Maniac Cop this time! — trash director William Lustig is back in the dirtiest of NYC surroundings with this sequel to his 1988 police exploitationer, made only more relevant after 30 or so years of constant brutality from the force. Sometimes art imitates life, I guess.

For those not following along, while the previous entry had Bruce Campbell and Laurene Landon taking down the hulking behemoth known as the Maniac Cop (Robert Z’Dar), they’re both quickly dispatched within the first half-hour by said insane officer, only to quickly be replaced by Robert Davi and Claudia Christian, both one step ahead on the pay scale.

As the Maniac Cop — now with far more reptilian facial features — randomly kills cops and other citizens desperately in need of help around the Big Apple, he eventually makes a bestest friend in the form of a crazy rapist. While I’m glad the Maniac Cop is putting himself out there and making pals, I have to admit I’m a little bit worried about his new friends.

After the Maniac Cop and his bros commandeer a bus headed to Sing Sing, the Deputy Commissioner (Michael Lerner) is forced via bullhorn to admit he’s the reason the Maniac Cop bought it in the prison showers lo those many years ago. After the Maniac Cop is promised a funeral with full honors, he finishes business the only way he knows how: by jumping out of a window while covered in flames, into a prison bus that quickly explodes, killing him.

Until, of course, Maniac Cop III: Badge of Silence.

As much as I liked the original Maniac Cop — and, really, who didn’t? — I truly enjoyed this next chapter in the trilogy, written by trash screenwriter Larry Cohen, keeping every beat filled with scummy action and tawdry suspense. It’s really hard to find a boring moment in this flick and, believe me, I looked for one.

Forever an unheralded cinematic trio of trash films, Maniac Cop 2 is definitely the best one of the bunch, a movie that thankfully gives a nightstick of spills across the knees and a taser of thrills right in the center of the chest. —Louis Fowler

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In the first 15 minutes of this Asian actioner, a suicide bomber takes out a government office; two apartment residents are tied to synchronized, booby-trapped explosives; a jewelry store robber threatens hostages with live grenades; and Hong Kong International Airport is absolutely decimated, melting travelers and all.

Shock Wave 2, you have my full attention.

The country cowers in the face of danger as trust-fund terrorist Ma Sai Kwan (Kwan-Ho Tse, Nude Fear) masterminds Resurrection Day, a large-scale nuclear attack against Hong Kong. Sounds like a job for Explosive Ordinance Disposal Bureau Officer Poon Shing Fung (Andy Lau, The Great Wall) … except he no longer works for the police, having been booted from the force after losing a leg in the line of duty.

After a explosion rips through a hotel, Fung is not only found unconscious in the rubble, but accused of planting the C-4. Is he working undercover or has he gone rogue? Awaking from his coma with a concussion and post-trauma amnesia, Fung has no answers; he literally can’t remember, but he’s determined to find out and, if needed, clear his name.

You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a one-legged, wheelchair-bound Lau escape a hospital siege in his PJs — a blazingly choreographed sequence that gives Shock Wave 2 hard Fugitive vibes, but this time, the protagonist possesses the prosthetic. It pops off an alarming amount of times, too — not all for kicks, but because returning director Herman Yau (The Untold Story) injects the sequel with the message of disability not equalling dispensability.

Make no mistake: This is no sermon wrapped in Trojan-horse coating. It’s a monster of an action film that draws influence from America’s enormously popular mad-bomber blockbusters of the genre’s 1990s peak, primarily Speed and Die Hard with a Vengeance (with the EODB’s bubble-headed uniforms inspired by the science thrillers Outbreak and Sphere). While we have Die Hard sequels on the brain, it’s worth noting that while the forever-fantastic Lau also played the lead in 2017’s original Shock Wave, his character was different, as if Bruce Willis played cop John McClane just once, then was back as, oh, cop Lance Bloodstone or cop Chad Runyon. Either way, yippee-ki-yay. —Rod Lott

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In the opening moments of No Time to Die, Daniel Craig’s fifth and final time as James Bond, the iconic spy visits the grave of Vesper Lynd, the woman who died for his love. Because Eva Green’s Vesper had a hand in 2006’s Casino Royale, Craig’s 007 debut, the gesture feels like the finishing stroke of a full circle representing his 15-year run. That feeling only deepens when he faces the rock slab — and, by camera placement, the audience — and says in an earnest near-whisper, “I miss you.”

Then, just as Bond spots a business card emblazoned with the SPECTRE organization’s ominous octopus logo, Vesper’s resting place explodes into rubble. It’s the filmmakers’ way of saying, “Time to upend your expectations.” All things considered, they mostly make good on that unspoken mission statement. (On the negative side of that, Billie Eilish’s theme song is a tepid bore.)

Now retired and committed to Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux, returning from 2015’s Spectre), Bond is coaxed back into the field when an MI6-manufactured virus is stolen from the agency’s off-the-books lab. Dubbed “the Heracles Project,” the bioweapon is genetically engineered to impact only the DNA of its possessor’s choosing — peculiar functionality that means everything to its warped thief, Safin (Rami Malek, The Little Things), a terrorist with a taste for revenge and a burnt face. Safin initially hides behind a Japanese Noh mask — a chilling image and one of the movie’s most indelible. With stakes standing at an all-time high, 007 resorts to consulting ol’ archenemy Blofeld (Christoph Waltz, reprising his Spectre role in a Hannibal Lecter-style cameo).

While much hype surrounds No Time to Die being not only Craig’s last time in the tux, but the 25th official film in the series, I’ve seen no writing on the wall regarding its stature as the franchise’s longest entry, at an eon of 163 minutes. Truth be told, its machinations run a level or two too complex than necessary.

That said, what would I cut? Certainly not a second from the action set pièce de résistance: a chase through the cobblestone streets — and up the stairs — of Matera, Italy. Definitely not Bond’s firepower-packed pas de deux in a Cuban nightclub with cleavage-bearing CIA contact Paloma (Knives Out’s Ana de Armas, bringing a wonderfully disarming comedic presence). In both sequences (and more), director Cary Joji Fukunaga exhibits a control as comfortable as the series’ best, even if none quite approximates the blood-pumping tension of his CV’s highlight thus far: that six-minute tracking shot from True Detective season one, episode four.

I might be persuaded to cast my vote against a rather overstuffed ending that sucks all the fun out of the room … but not when we have Malek treating Safin like Shakespeare once No Time to Die says “yes” to cribbing from Dr. No by jetting to its villain’s island lair.

But I come to praise 007, not to bury him. Through more highs (Skyfall) than lows (Quantum of Solace), one thing remained consistent: Craig, cucumber-cool and captivating. Sean Connery aside, nobody did Bond better.

Already, I miss you. —Rod Lott