With movies of this genre, it is always going to be a tall ask and a hard sell. Big disaster flicks haven't gone down too well with fans and critics for years. Enter Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson. Johnson has had a good run recently with the box office. He is a one man PR/Marketing machine and studios love that. The Rock plays a rescue helicopter pilot called called Ray. You are introduced to Ray while he saves a young girl from a car which has gone over a cliff from a rock slide (that wasn't a pun). As always Johnson plays Ray as an all American action hero, ripping car doors off with his bare hands and punching car thieves for good measure.
Carla Gugino plays Ray's estranged wife Emma. Gugino and Johnson have strong chemistry and it shows that this is the pairs third time of working together.
Alexandra Daddario plays the pair's daughter Blake. Blake is in San Francisco when the big earthquake hits. It is a strange casting. Not because she is bad, but because The Rock who is playing Daddario's father is only 14 years older than her. Blake is meant to be 17 but has been played by an actress who is pushing 30. At no point does she convince the audience as a 17 year old. Not her fault, just strange casting.
The rest of the cast are a strange mix: a "blink and you miss it" cameo from Kylie Minogue which is more distracting than enjoyable, a couple of actors playing brothers with the worst British accents in recent history, Ioan Gruffudd running around looking very confused, and the wonderful Paul Giamatti chewing up dialogue in typical Giamatti Style. He does most of the heavy lifting in terms of explaining what is actually happening to the US coast and even makes some of the dialogue believable.
The script is by far the film's downfall. The dialogue is very wooden and in some places very, very cringe worthy. The 2D dimensional characters are instantly forgettable. There is a back story about a dead daughter between Ray and Emma which tries to give the story more depth but sadly is more a hindrance than a help.
The pacing of the movie is fine but every twist and turn is predictable. Being predictable isn't a good thing when you're meant to be glued to your seats and routing for your heroes in near death experiences.
I do have to give a mention to the special effects, especially the big set pieces. They are truly breathtaking. Hours and hours of people working must of gone into slowly crafting some of the best and most bonkers earthquake set pieces that there has ever been on film.
San Andreas is a combination of great special effects and a terrible script. It's predictable and does the play by play of stupid disaster movie clichés. But if you ignore all that and just enjoy it for what it is - a big, dumb, fun disaster movie with a big action star at the heart of it, you will have an OK couple of hours of viewing pleasure. Probably better than what came before it but still not the disaster movie it aspired to be and what the audience were hoping for.
⭐️⭐️
- Dave Curtis
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