San Andreas [2015] is the California-set disaster film from director Brad Peyton (Journey 2: The Mysterious Island). The film follows helicopter rescue pilot Ray Gaines (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) as he traverses an earthquake-ravaged California to rescue his wife (Carla Gugino) and daughter (Alexandra Daddario) from the record-setting natural disaster.
Charisma counts. Luckily for San Andreas, they managed to get some very likable actors to spew the script’s crappy dialogue. Dwayne Johnson is a bona fide star and it looks like Daddario is one on the rise. However, their likability only goes so far. They aren’t given much to really dig into with such a below average script. Daddario really had to work wonders in a role that seemed to be written just to have her slowly lose layers of clothing to show off her breasts.
Pixels or people? A problem with the disaster movie genre is a lack of any feeling of peril for the audience members. This remains true here. The main characters are never killed, let alone injured while hundreds of CGI extras get iced in sweeping, grandiose shots. The audience never worries about the outcome because they know the characters are basically invincible. Come on, they have to make it to the final group shot in front of the sun setting over a destroyed landscape, right?!
Call of Duty 27: Screw It! Gaines, a character whose job it is to save people in disastrous circumstances, he ignores his duties, instead of going off to save his loved ones. Aww, what a sweet guy. But not really. Remember how everyone was upset about a certain DC superhero's questionable heroics in the 3rd act of his 2013 reboot? A similar, albeit much smaller reaction, may rise out of San Francisco’s CGI rubble.
Not a complete disaster (heh), but you’ve almost definitely seen this stuff before.
