Skyscraper (1996)

Skyscraper is Die Hard with boobs. That’s it. Bye.

…Okay, fine. There’s a little more to it than that. Anna Nicole Smith stars as a helicopter pilot who finds herself trapped in a tower overrun by terrorists, forcing her into the role of an unlikely action hero. That’s it. Bye.

Yeah, yeah, joke’s over. Where do I even begin? Perhaps with the film’s star herself, Anna Nicole Smith. An early-’90s Playboy phenomenon, successful model, and by the mid-’90s, a tabloid punchline. Most infamously, she married a near-death oil tycoon. While embroiled in legal battles over his estate, she also landed her first leading movie role in To the Limit, with Skyscraper arriving the following year. So she certainly had her hands full from ’95 onward.

Before jumping into the movie itself, it’s worth taking a look at the production company behind both of those titles. PM Entertainment Group was a staple of ’90s mid-budget direct-to-video action films.

They certainly had a formula, following the famous “7-minute rule.” A stunt, fight, car crash, explosion—something had to be on the screen every seven minutes to keep the pace moving.

Essentially, that’s what Skyscraper is doing, albeit in a budget friendly way. The reason you’re watching this, is for the dumb action. And obviously, to see Anna Nicole’s breasts. It certainly delivers on both counts. Mission accomplished. 

The opening scene takes place in a back alley, and everything is very stock. Exchanging of technology or whatever between bad guys. All ends in a shootout, a rocket launcher, and a car being launched into a semi-truck. Again, cliché? Sure, but who cares. It looks awesome. You even get one of the guys from American Gladiators. Malibu, for the record. 

From there, you are introduced to Anna’s character, Carrie, along with her husband, who will be the other lead we follow. And cue the extended sex scene. For all the things you could say about this movie, you know exactly what they were going for. Same director as To the Limit, btw. We’ll circle back to him in a bit. 

We have to talk about Anna Nicole Smith as an actress. She’s bad. Like, really bad. You know why she’s in the movie. A blind man could see it. But her line delivery is something that truly needs to be witnessed. Therefore, I put together this short clip. How convenient. 

Btw, we never really know why she’s a helicopter pilot. It’s basically just a way to set up an ending with the main bad guy on the roof. Because, of course, this movie ends there. It’s called Skyscraper. Now roll the footage. 

When the terrorists finally arrive at the non-Nakatomi Plaza—but we’ll call it Nakatomi Plaza anyway—this really does turn into Great Value Die Hard. Quite literally. So many of the characters are legit carbon copies of those in the original. Anna Nicole even does the jump-off-the-building bit. The main villain goes completely over the top, as you should in a movie like this. It’s so ridiculously stupid, yet you can’t turn away. Well, maybe you can. Depends on your tolerance for trash. 

Ironically, Skyscraper made it to video in July ‘96, just two months after Anna’s oft-compared counterpart, Pamela Anderson, headlined Barb Wire. I’d much rather watch the latter, but they both kind of exist in the same lane. It’s just one of them swerves a bit, while the other hits a telephone pole.

Oh, and as for its director, Raymond Martino, he once played a gang member in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. No, not during the famous tequila dance sequence—he appears earlier, before Pee-wee visits Madam Ruby.

Hm. Turns out there wasn’t much more to it after all. There’s no basement at the Alamo, and Anna Nicole isn’t John McClane.