San Andreas (2015)

Where are all the ugly people? San Andreas puts a beautiful family front and centre of this disaster film and it leaves me wondering that only beautiful people can survive disaster attacks. You have a handsome well built leading man played by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. You have his gorgeous wife, played by Carla Gugino and their hot hot hot daughter, played by Alexandra Daddario. Even the suave and Welsh Ioan Gruffudd has a small role here. I guess you can label Paul Giamatti as average or even below average and guess what role he's got here? The smart guy.

The plot line for the film is flimsy, so much so, that there is almost no plot at all. We have a basic outline of a story where we find our characters in the location where a giant Earthquake will take lots of lives and destroy lots of buildings. Johnson plays a rescue chopper pilot, we see his skills in the opening sequences where he has to rescue a young blonde woman who's stuck in her van falling down a cliff. Our hero, front and centre, rescues the poor girl and goes back home to find divorce papers waiting for him. His family is falling apart due to a horribly tragic accident that cost him the life of one of his daughters. His other daughter is alive and well, they seem to get along, so we have no daddy issues here. Except his wife wants to move on and move on with Ioan Gruffudd. He seems like a nice guy, when circumstance don't call for him to save another persons life or anything. As soon as a character like this pops up on screen, you can almost guarantee that they will do something dickish, which will push the wife back closer to her soon to be ex husband. What does this guy do? Leave her daughter to die while she is stuck in a car. This switch was almost instant. He was likable up until that point, then he becomes a total dick to everyone. When one's life is at stake I guess....

Anyways, I digress. San Andreas wants to entertain you with the abundance of special effects it throws at you. 2012 style effects which sees building collapse left, right and centre. People running through the streets, destroyed in seconds. Yet, our main characters always seem to be okay even when running on a building that is falling beneath them. Thrilling? I'm not so sure, since we've seen these scenes played over and over again in every other disaster film. San Andreas has the added bonus of looking completely fake when we have our characters dead centre in the action. Seeing both Johnson and Gugino is a boat roaming San Fransisco is hilariously awful. Nothing about this film feels genuine. The special effects look like special effects I see everywhere else. This film feels like 2012 lite. Centred around one family and their attempt to escape this destruction.

The cast is serviceable to their roles, which entails a lot of screaming, running and nothing else really. I couldn't help but roll my eyes in disbelief numerous times throughout the film. Let me ask you this: Both Johnson and Gugino decide they must find their daughter amidst this chaos. So they go to San Franciso, communications are down, tens of thousands of people are dying and more are looking for salvation. Will they find each other? This is after a tsunami has hit too by the way. What are the chances that they will be wandering around looking for their daughter and she will magically appear right behind them? I think it's pretty plausible....at least this film wants me to believe so.

San Andreas offers nothing new and it feels like rehashed material. I guess if you like disaster films check it out, or just watch 2012 again, it's almost the sam damn movie. At least in that one we get to see the destruction on a much bigger scale.