SAN ANDREAS

San Andreas

Grade: C+

Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, Alexandra Daddario, Paul Giamatti, Ioan Gruffudd, and Archie Panjabi; with Hugo Johnstone-Burt as Ben, Art Parkinson as Ollie, and Will Yun Lee as Dr. Kim

Premise: A series of sudden massive earthquakes levels the California coast, leading to widespread devastation and putting three estranged members of a local family in mortal danger.

Rated PG-13 for constant intense, scary scenes of peril and destruction, language, disturbing images, intense emotional content, and some blood

Believe it or not, it is a complete coincidence that I bought a DVD of Deep Impact right before I saw the new thriller San Andreas, and had it with me throughout the duration of the film. One could suppose this is not a coincidence because San Andreas is strictly Disaster Movie 101, a by-the-numbers flick about widespread peril that harkens back to the late-90s, early ‘00s era of disaster movies, one of which was the comet-approaching-Earth drama Deep Impact. I didn’t see the 2009 flick 2012—directed by noted disaster auteur Roland Emmerich—which is probably the most recent example of Disaster Movie 101, but anyone my age can easily recall numerous titles that were all about the mayhem wreaked on the world (but mostly on Los Angeles and New York City) by natural disasters—Volcano, Twister, Dante’s Peak, Deep Impact, Armageddon, The Day After Tomorrow. A few other titles come to mind, as well, that took a different sort of angle but were still focused largely on destruction and people in peril in the midst of that destruction (Independence Day, Night of the Twisters, Poseidon, Titanic, etc…).

Disaster Movie 101 is simple. Massive destruction is wreaked by some hastily-explained, thought-to-be-impossible phenomenon, leveling cities, turning oceans into tidal waves, creating explosions, and basically making things pretty tough for three or more parties of characters the audience needs to care about. At least one of the parties usually contains a scientist who can explain the phenomenon and keep the audience informed at how things, no matter how imaginably awful they seem, are going to get worse. The other parties are sometimes related, sometimes not, but generally consist of hapless citizens mixed with resourceful everyday heroes, and they’re always trying A) to find someone else in their family/group who’s been separated and/or B) trying, against all odds, to get to safety.

Plot

After saving a distracted-while-driving teen from certain death, Los Angeles Fire Department rescue pilot Ray Logan (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) suffers a major double whammy: his college-bound daughter, Blake (Alexandra Daddario), has other plans and little time for him before she heads off to school, and his soon-to-be-ex, Emma (Carla Gugino), is about to full-on move-in with her super-rich new flame, Daniel (Ioan Gruffudd, aka Mr. Fantastic from the original Fantastic Four). So Ray is left to mope while Daniel takes his daughter to one of his posh luxury office buildings in downtown San Francisco, while Emma goes to downtown Los Angeles after handing Ray some divorce papers. In San Francisco, Blake meets an awkward-cute Brit named Ben (Hugo Johnstone-Burt), who’s prepping for an interview for a position at Daniel’s hoity-toity architecture company. In tow with Daniel is his cute, scrappy younger brother, Ollie (Art Parkinson, aka Rickon Stark from Game of Thrones).

Meanwhile…

At Cal Tech, a pair of scientists who study earthquakes (Paul Giamatti and Will Yun Lee) sense that a series of erratic tremors in the earth’s crust means their old theory—super-duper powerful earthquakes that come around once every hundred years or so—is true, and it means one is about to hit. Well, one does hit in Nevada, obliterating the Hoover Dam and nearly costing them both their lives. But their studies tell them more—and more powerful—quakes are on the way along the San Andreas fault line, which means some of Cali’s biggest and most populous cities are in danger. Soon, it’s up to their university science division, and a local reporter (Archie Panjabi), to get word out that some ungodly destruction is coming.

And then…

Some ungodly destruction comes in the form of massive earthquakes that turn downtown LA and San Fran into flaming, collapsing, apocalyptic horror zones. Blake is separated from Daniel, and, with a hand from Ben and Ollie, barely escapes the collapse of Daniel’s office. Ray, in flight in a helicopter, rushes to get on the scene to save his soon-to-be-ex (who he still loves) and his daughter, racing against time as he sees the ground below him literally move in ripples as the tectonic plates shift and ram against one another.

What Works?

I’m going to go out on a limb and say the CGI in San Andreas is probably better than that in most of the movies I mentioned before, so these unimaginable scenes of destruction are at least given some legitimacy. And as I mentioned, it feels like a long time since I’ve seen a big, straight-forward Disaster Movie (2014’s Pompeii was close, but was decidedly a B-level flick), and there’s a different kind of thrill to it then to, say, Marvel Comics adaptations or Transformers movies. Where, in those movies, great pains are taken to either A) pretend there was no human cost to all the destruction and mayhem wreaked in their set-pieces (i.e. The Avengers), or B) ignore the human cost by showing nothing worse than a few scrapes and bruises (i.e. Transformers)—Disaster Movies aren’t afraid to add to the spectacle/realism or what they’re depicting by bumping some people off. I’m not saying it’s a good or cool or refreshing thing, it’s just more realistic. Boy, do people die in San Andreas—you do not want to be an extra in a movie like this, especially if you’re in the same scene as a main character who’s supposed to survive the unimaginable. Me and one of the friends with whom I saw the movie were on the edge of our seats during the early earthquake scenes, and we probably uttered a couple dozen repetitions of the phrase “oh s***!” Some imagination definitely goes into crafting these scenes—people get crushed by falling objects, fall through collapsing floors, topple out windows, get blown up or blasted away by explosions and/or the explosions’ shock waves, or get leveled by giant onrushing walls of water. I don’t know that I should say I was entertained by these scenes, but they certainly had a major wow factor, of the kind I hadn’t felt at the movies in a while.

They’re all in cookie-cutter parts, with cliché lines, cliché plot contrivances, and you sometimes unfortunately remember that they’re all screaming/crying/reacting to things that aren’t really happening (CGI! Green screens! Remember?), but the cast of San Andreas is serviceable. This is probably the most stretched Dwayne Johnson has yet been on the big screen—he acquits himself well, believable as a big, strong guy (well, duh!) who can repel down ropes, lift people, and move heavy objects in a pinch, but he also has a few quieter, more emotional moments. Seriously, at least once, I felt the big guy tugging on my heart-strings while he quietly ruminated on an old family tragedy with tears in his eyes. Gugino and Daddario at least get to play characters more resourceful than most women in a disaster movie with a big, strong, male hero. And, of course, Giamatti is convincing as the nebbish but super-smart scientist.

What Doesn’t Work?

Weeelllll, a lot. This movie is pretty formulaic, with its cookie-cutter characters and abounding conveniences for the characters. While I suppose you can believe Dwayne Johnson’s character could utilize a helicopter, a plane, and a boat to get from LA to San Francisco (my dad, a former-helicopter-and-current-fixed-wing-pilot with a thing for boats, could, too), the unending means Ray uses to move toward his imperiled daughter almost become kind of laughable. What means of transportation are they going to use next? I was, personally, thinking motorcycle, bicycle, train, jet ski, space shuttle… (at one point, some of the characters do pass a row of fallen motorcycles and bikes, but, incredibly, they don’t take advantage). The script is really obvious, too, checking off the boxes in the Disaster Movie screenplay one-by-one: character with family in jeopardy, character with a skeleton in the closet, character whose marriage is in trouble, The Big Revealing Character Moment, The Other Guy (Daniel) who turns out to be a sniveling coward in crisis, the precocious, resourceful kid, the cute young-adult love interests, the in-case-I-don’t-make-it-back kiss, the crying, inexplicably abandoned child a character with limited time has to save, risking his life (saving the kiddo but costing him his life, natch), Ugly Cry Face in a moment of high tension, random cuts back to our main “villain”, just so we remember he’s in the movie so he can die an epic and gratuitous CGI death, the series of obstacles that feels like a video game level, PG-13’s one allotted F-word, used gratuitously to diss an unlikeable character, the closing line “We will rebuild”, uttered against a devastated landscape? They’re all here.

Yeah, it’s like that. Blake’s first meeting with Ben could’ve been a time-filler, but as soon as his cute little brother showed up, you knew they were gonna be main characters (though it is a slight deviation from formula that it was his brother and that he wasn’t a doting, hard-working single dad). And I couldn’t help but notice that Carla Gugino’s character, who was in an epic building collapse, nearly got set on fire, was engulfed in a dust cloud, was in a helicopter crush and a plane crash and then another building almost-collapse, seemed to get cleaner and prettier as the movie went on, when the reverse is probably more plausible. Just sayin’.

Content

You won’t see any decapitations or spilling guts or anything, but the onscreen body count is pretty high, as mentioned. Moreover, San Andreas is quick to get to the action, so the vast majority of the movie’s almost-two-hour running-time is suspenseful, imperiled stuff. There are a handful of cuss-words in addition the big F-bomb, a couple bloody wounds, a few shock moments, and at least one scene of real drama that may illicit some tears. This is a Disaster Movie, folks. It’s a little more dramatic than Marvel Comics.

Bottom Line (I promise)

I’m not saying San Andreas is a bad movie. The first half is actually pretty riveting, and there are plenty of little details within the destruction that will make your jaw drop (you do not, EVER, want to be an extra in the same shot as a main character fleeing destruction; you will die, always). Riveting and intense, it took me right back to the disaster movie heyday, as I mentioned, back before I thought too much about movies. I enjoyed it, for my part. However, I couldn’t quite ignore the very by-the-numbers plot and characters and the endless plot contrivances. I also couldn’t help but wonder if younger folks raised on Transformers and Marvel Comics movies that contain a lot of action, but rarely any deaths, would see and be impressed by this movie (these were my summer blockbusters, kids!). Dwayne Johnson’s pretty good, and the CGI is pretty good—this is nothing exceptionally groundbreaking, but it’ll hold your interest.

San Andreas (2015)

Directed by Brad Peyton

Written for the Screen by Carlton Cuse

Rated PG-13

Length: 114 minutes