My husband and I watched Skyscraper last night, an unabashed American action film starring Dwayne Johnson. It was an impulse decision, and tons of fun.

For action movie fans, what’s not to like? Impossible feats of strength and stamina, don’t-we-wish technology, really nasty bad guys who threaten children, adorable children who survive, ex-military married couple good guys, a 220-story building that contains a 60-story park, and family values. Someone operates a tower crane, my personal favorite construction machine since I read truck books to my toddlers. A detachable prosthetic advances the “plot” more than once. Duct tape has significant product placement, if a non-registered product can have that.

Although I know these movies are popular worldwide, the day after watching one, it seems like something no non-American could appreciate, much less revel in. Or maybe I’m just thinking of all my friends, most of whom are Americans, yet I don’t think they like action movies.

I know I’m in some sort of out-group here. I just feel it.

Enjoyment aside, I could not make a case for supporting this example of the genre. There was copious gratuitous violence; even I felt a twinge of compassion for the scads of HVAC techs and IT guys killed for wrong place, wrong time. Bad things shown as cool included ridiculously rich people and their toys, a hot female killer, and thugs wielding power through weapons and threats. Set in Hong Kong, the movie was packed with gadgets and glitz, devoid of Nature. The stunts were pretty much 100% in-denial-of-physics: Do Not try any of this at home.

We have 20 or so Nature and Nova episodes recorded, a long list of documentaries and critically-acclaimed movies we want to watch, books to read, and lots of Things we Should do (one word, starts with P),* yet somehow we just got into that mood. And even though I am feeling this compulsion to confess, I don’t regret it.

After all, it’s probably too late to save the planet anyway.

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* Any musician can answer this one: Practice!