San Andreas
Director: Brad Peyton
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, Alexandra Daddario
114 mins; Class 12;
KRS Releasing Ltd

San Andreas is a fully-fledged disaster movie the likes of which we haven’t seen in a while, as the eponymous San Andreas Fault awakens with an almighty roar.

It is Mother Nature’s own weapon of mass destruction as it gives rise to a series of mighty earthquakes that tear California apart from Los Angeles to San Francisco.

Dwayne Johnson stars as LA search and rescue pilot Ray Gaines. He is joined by his estranged wife Emma (Carla Gugino) and they set off in search of their daughter Blake (Alexandra Daddario) who is struggling to stay on safe ground in San Francisco.

Directed by Brad Peyton with what can only be described as consummate glee, San Andreas is greatly concerned with spectacle and it delivers that in spades. The whole is best described as an orgy of exceptional special effects. There is no let up for the audience from its opening moments, when a falling rock lands on a car causing the driver to lose control and veer off the road, winding up perilously hanging on to the side of the cliff.

A heart-in-mouth rescue operation follows and the action pretty much has its foot slammed down on the pedal from thereon in.

Each set-piece does its damnedest to outdo the one before; as buildings keel over one another, crashing to the ground like dominoes or imploding into themselves.

Roads are torn up with the consummate ease a sheet of paper being torn in two; gaping black chasms appear on highways; and famous landmarks like the Hoover Dam, the Golden Gate bridge and the Hollywood sign are destroyed beyond recognition, as vast swathes of the California terrain folds in on itself.

It is admittedly jaw-droppingly good fun and offers no-expense-spared, loud, brainless summer popcorn entertainment.

Yet, I couldn’t help wishing that more effort had been put into the plot – for there is virtually none – or character development.

Never lets up on the adrenalin

In San Andreas, the visual drama far outshines the human drama and, once the roller-coaster ride is over and the adrenaline rush dissipates you realise you care little for any of the characters most of whom are very thinly-drawn.

They are split between the good guys (the majority of the characters) and the singular bad guy, a smooth, smarmy and cowardly developer (Ioan Gruffudd) who owns the tallest building in SF, no prizes for guessing what fate befalls either of them.

As for the rest, they efficiently tick the boxes of disaster movie characters what with our estranged couple; the feisty daughter; her potential love interest; the precocious child; the science boffin and the journalist.

Despite the many trials and tribulations each of them go through, you are never in any doubt how things will end up and the contrivances and remarkable coincidences that pepper the plot only serve to dilute any sense of suspense.

That said, the cast throw themselves willingly into the chaos, gamely uttering the utterly bland dialogue from the script by Carlton Cuse.

Dwayne Johnson is as solid as ahem a rock in the main role, putting his square-jawed determination to good work.

And, while there is no arguing that his is a presence one would want in the middle of a disaster of epic proportion such as this, the fact that he spends a good part of the film ing at various points: a helicopter, a tiny plane, an SUV and a dinghy and not in the centre of collapsing cities feels like he is cheating.

Granted, none of these rides end smoothly much to the chagrin of his ex-wife…

Their feisty daughter Blake is clearly a chip off the old block, proving especially resourceful in case of an emergency as she makes her way to the rendezvous point established by her parents with a couple of brothers she met just before disaster literally struck.

It is rather refreshing to see a female character taking the lead and getting acknowledged for it.

Paul Giamatti is Dr Lawrence Hayes, a seismologist who helpfully explains the science to us as events unfold via TV journalist Serena Johnson (Archie Panjabi).

Whether that science is genuine or not is not up to me to verify. Yet, given Giamatti’s typical commitment to the role, you never doubt its authenticity.

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