San Andreas (2015)
Certified: 12A
Duration: 114 minutes
Directed by: Brad Peyton
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, Alexandra Daddario, Paul Giamatti, Ioan Gruffudd, Archie Panjabi, Hugo Johnstone-Burt, Art Parkinson, Colton Haynes, Todd Williams, Matt Gerald, Will Yun Lee, Kylie Minogue
KRS Releasing Ltd
Ray Gaines (Dwayne Johnson), a qualified and decorated chopper rescue pilot, is about to divorce his wife Emma (Carla Gugino), who is currently involved with Daniel Riddick (Iaon Gruffudd), a business developer in real estate. The latter is building the highest skyscraper in San Francisco.
The couple has a teenage daughter, Blake (Alexandra Daddario), who is about to go to college. Ray wants to spend some time with her before she leaves. That is when an earthquake occurs, striking the Hoover Dam – on the border between Arizona and Nevada –and destroying it.
Professor Lawrence Hayes (Paul Giamatti), a seismology professor, had expected this disaster. He had found ways to predict when an earthquake is about to hit. While being interviewed, it dawns on him that what happened to the Nevada Dam is nothing compared to what is about to strike the San Andreas Fault – that extends roughly 1,300km through California – and the cities in between.
The characters, while two-dimensional, are sympathetic and delivered with a very good dose of conviction
The area is in fact soon hit by a massive earthquake. Ray desperately tries to save Emma and Blake, who meanwhile finds help from Ben (Hugo Johnstone-Burt), a young man who had come to Daniel’s business to apply for a job.
His younger brother Ollie (Art Parkinson) joins them. Everyone must find salvation as the whole coastline is about to be enveloped by a tsunami.
San Andreas is a pure disaster movie where the emphasis is fair and square on the glorification of the ‘awesome’ scenes of destruction and on the muscular structure of Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock.
Brad Peyton who had previously directed Dwayne Johnson in Journey 2: The Mysterious Island does not need to be original.
From the outset, the emphasis was always going to be to deliver scene after scene of end-of-the-world kind of destruction.
It goes gung ho to literally swarm the cinema screen with all sort of cliff-hanging moments.
The fact that it does this and manages to keep a straight face makes this movie a very good challenge to anything director Roland Emmerich has delivered in this genre.
San Andreas manages to push its audience straight into the scenes of mass destruction.
The audience will feel the crunch as falling buildings abound, the Hoover Dam is sliced open, Los Angeles is given a good shake and nature seems to be having fun at our expense as it takes its timely revenge.
The characters, while two-dimensional, are sympathetic and delivered with a very good dose of conviction.
Screenwriter Carlton Cuse gives the characters enough background to make them a valid conduit for the audience’s attention as we sympathise with their run to safety and with Ray’s mission to save his daughter.
Amid all the crashes, CGI trickery and a quick-paced sense of adventure, San Andreas delivers much more than what one would think the disaster movie formula would allow.