Will Sawyer is the main protagonist of the 2018 action thriller film Skyscraper.
He is portrayed by Dwayne Johnson, who also portrayed Beck in The Rundown, Mathayus in The Mummy Returns and the first The Scorpion King film, Joe Kingman in The Game Plan, Derek Thompson in The Tooth Fairy, Captain Chuck T. Baker in Planet 51, Luke Hobbs in the Fast & Furious films, Hank Parsons in Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, Hercules in the titular 2014 film, Roadblock in G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Ray Gaines in San Andreas, Bob Stone in Central Intelligence, Maui in Moana, Mitch Buchannon in the 2017 film adaptation of Baywatch, Spencer Gilpin/Dr. Smolder Bravestone in the Jumanji films, Davis Okoye in Rampage, Frank Wolff in Jungle Cruise, Krypto in DC League of Super-Pets, Black Adam in the titular 2022 film, and Callum Drift in Red One.
History[]
Will was once a longtime US Navy veteran agent. In his latest FBI venture he lost a leg to a patient who decided to blow himself up, so he replaced it with an advanced artificial prosthesis and was forced to leave his job, but operated on first by a US Navy surgeon from name Sarah with whom he later falls in love. and she gets married and they have twins, Henry and Georgia.
10 years later, Will and his family moved to Hong Kong and he became a private security consultant. His old friend and colleague, Ben Gillespie, accompanies him on his first day of work at the tallest building in the world, the Skyscraper, 3,500 feet (1,060 meters) high and with 225 floors, in which in one of those not Sawyer and his family will also go to the 98 floors still remaining. The building is owned by the rich entrepreneur, Zhao Long Ji, who as soon as he meets it shows them the skyscraper with an enchanting view, and entrusts them with a tablet with facial recognition to control the security and fire prevention systems.
In this, Will also meets Gillespie, the director of security Okeke and Mr. Pierce, the head of insurance.
Will is accompanied home by Ben, they talk about the fact that he no longer works for the FBI and now he says he has a better life, as they get off the ferry, Will is wounded in the arm, while the one who scratched him steals his suitcase. Ben accompanies Will home where when he takes off his jacket to disinfect his arm, he notices the tablet inside it revealing that Will has always kept it with him and at that moment Ben points a gun at them and a fight starts between the two, ending with Will accidentally shooting Ben in the heart, in which in his last moments before dying, he reveals to Will that his wife and children did not have to go to Skyscraper because he will soon set them on fire with a flammable chemical with water and that the target was his tablet. After the death of his friend and having received all the necessary information, Will begins to head to the Skyscraper, but is attacked by the henchmen of the main villain, Kores Botha, who after a short chase immobilize him and Xia, Botha's right-hand man, uses his face to access all the accesses of Skyscraper by deactivating all security, but at the point of killing him, the police arrive and start a shootout, with Will managing to escape in the midst of the situation on a motorbike.
Once he gets near the Skyscraper, he can't get through because there are a lot of people who have come to see the fire, so with his cell phone, Will gives information to Sarah to get the children out of there. Everything goes well, until two security guards arrive and are killed by a bang and so Sarah leaves her cell phone and runs away with the children, still in the direction Will said. Will, however, is now wanted by the authorities because they believe he is corrupt and responsible for the fire, but he manages to escape and climbs a crane, then blocks the entrance upstairs to prevent the police from entering, and then he activates the crane and stretching it to the limit he activates it and ends up breaking a wall of the Pearl. But then the hook doesn't stay attached for long and Will is forced to jump up to the wall to escape the police, luckily managing to do so and going inside to look for his family, with thousands of spectators watching him through the screen.
Will fights with a terrorist patrol and reunites with Sarah and Henry, with Giorgia having separated in the meantime. Will saves Sarah from Pierce, who turned out to be one of Botha's henchmen and he was about to kill Sarah and the man dies when he falls down into the burning ward. Henry, however, remained on the other side of a collapsed bridge and so Will sends Sarah with an axle to get him while he holds up the half-broken piece, and the attempt succeeds. Soon after, Will takes Sarah and Henry through the fire barrier in a free-fall elevator before applying the emergency brakes, allowing them to escape safely, and after this Will goes to look for Giorgia, captured in the process by Henry's henchmen. Botha, and blackmails him to bring Zhao to them if he doesn't want his daughter to end up thrown off the roof. Will discovers that the security panel of the attic where Zhao is located is outside inside the propellers and so he rushes to put it out with a rope, but is then forced to escape quickly due to the fire that has started. He manages to enter Zhao's room thanks to his prosthetic and after Zhao initially points a gun at them, Will manages to overpower him and Zhao tells them everything: Botha had extorted money from him during the 6 billion dollar construction project by threatening to paralyze his workforce, but has kept a detailed computer file of transactions as insurance, which can reveal accounts and names of three crime syndicates Botha works for, so Botha instigated the attack to obtain the documents as his employers threaten to kill him. So the two decide to collaborate.
During the exchange that takes place on the roof of the Pearl, where Zhao changes plans slightly and he distracts Botha and his henchmen allowing Giorgia to escape, and then in the hall of mirrors, Will and Zhao manage to kill all of Botha's men, but in the meantime Zhao is injured and Botha captures Giorgia who threatens to throw her down a hole with a bomb, but Will with one last remaining mirror manages to beat him and throws him down the hole causing him to die with the bomb. Now it really seems to be the end for Will, Giorgia and Zhao, but Sarah, who recovered the tablet from Xia and also had her arrested, thanks to a trick that Will had taught her, manages to reactivate the fire safety systems of the skyscraper, deactivating them first, so the fire is extinguished and Will, Giorgia and Zhao are taken to safety by a police helicopter.
As they go down, Will comforts Zhao and gives them the chip back to him, and Zhao tells them that he isn't too worried and will fix Skyscraper.
Once on land, Will is now considered innocent and the whole city welcomes him as a hero, he is reunited with his family and meets Inspector Wu and everyone returns home happy.
Trivia[]
- Rampage and Skyscraper, both of which Dwayne Johnson starred in, came out in 2018.