San Andreas

Flix!

San Andreas is not a film that will make you think deep thoughts. It does not have clever intellectual plot twists. In fact it's plot is tragically predictable. But the film does exactly what it's designed to do: Give you 114 minutes of simple escapism by way of some pretty impressive special effects.

Dwyane Johnson plays Ray, a guy who is a trained Rescue Firefighter, who was being sent to assist in a situation and then the big one hit. A giant earthquake the whole length of the San Andreas fault. From Los Angeles to San Francisco the earth has opened up. This in reality is not what would happen in this situation, but it's Hollywood. So just go with it. His estranged wife Emma (Carla Gugino) is now engaged to a wealthy building developer, but Ray is sort of ok with that. Their daughter Blake (Alexandria Daddario) is in San Francisco, and is working for mom's new finance. On this particular day, a young man Daniel (Ioan Gruffudd) is interviewing for a job at the mom's boyfriend's company and he has been forced to bring along his younger brother Ollie (Art Parkinson). This happens about the time the big one makes it's way up to San Francisco.

Meanwhile, somewhere else a top meteorologist, Prof. Lawrence (Paul Giamatti) has just discovered, along with a colleague, a way to accurately predict earthquakes before they happen. Unfortunately the colleague is inside the Hoover Dam when the biggie hit, and it was strong enough to take the Dam down.

Later, after Ray and his ex have teamed up to go find their daughter (we know about 5 minutes into the movie that they are going to end up reuniting, like I say predictable), Prof. Lawrence is being interviewed by a newswoman Serena (played by the incredibly hot Archie Punjab) and later they team up to save not only themselves but potentially many other lives.

Of course, Ray and Emma get back together. Of course Blake drowns, but a couple of chest pumps brings her back to life. Of course Daniel saves Blake at one point so they'll fall in love. Of course the cowardly fiance gets his. Of course the little brother Ollie is the comic relief. So predictable. But exactly what you signed up for when you bought a ticket.

So, can I fault this movie? Not really.

It didn't promise something it didn't deliver. It was a disaster movie, and it showed us disaster. So I cannot fault that.

Perhaps the ones that are at fault for low-level cinema are us. We that buy so many tickets that these things and they make a lot of money and foster more. Perhaps it started with "A Night To Remember", and then there was "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Towering Inferno", and "Airport!" and the biggie "Titanic". So, we have no one to blame but ourselves. But, who's the victim? We paid for escapism, and we got it. So I guess it's all good.

I was given 114 minutes of what I paid to get. But the fact we didn't get a better movie with better actors than WWE cast outs, is our fault. But having said that, the special effects were phenomenal.

Grade: C