REVIEW: San Andreas

Courtesy of Warner Bros.

Dwayne Johnson (I think he has officially dropped The Rock moniker for all non-wrestling situations) is one of the most charismatic actors working in movies today. He might not have the widest range, but you can never accuse him of coasting. He delivers an intense, enthusiastic performance every single time. As such, he’s the best element in a lot of bad movies.

Unfortunately, you can add his latest disaster flick to that list. Although he and his talented co-stars – the stunning Carla Gugino and Alexandra Daddario – try their best to elevate the bland material, it ends up being a thinly connected string of action setpeices that were tired back when Roland Emmerich covered similar ground with 2012.

Johnson plays Ray, a search and rescue helicopter pilot planning to take his daughter (Daddario) on a camping trip before she goes away to college. He figures they need a little bit of fun since he and her mother (Gugino) are in the middle of divorce, mostly because of his inability to process their older daughter’s death in a rafting accident a few years earlier.

But he’s called away after a devastating earthquake hits the Hoover Dam, resulting in mass casualties and prompting a renowned seismologist (Paul Giamatti) to warn everyone that a series of even bigger quakes are headed for California. When that happens, Ray finds himself separated from his family and determined to rescue them amid the chaos.

San Andreas aims to be a throwback to disaster films of the 1970s, but it doesn’t accomplish that goal for one big reason: the nonstop barrage of video game-level CGI. As cheesy as flicks like The Towering Inferno were, they were forced to use practical effects. That gives them a level of realism that director Brad Peyton can’t accomplish.

Aside from one genuinely heartbreaking scene in a flooded skyscraper, which works thanks to moving performances from Johnson and Daddario, as well as (would you look at that!) practical effects, it never feels like the main characters are in danger. There’s almost never a moment when you believe this is a family trying to survive an apocalypse-level event. Instead, it constantly feels like you’re watching a bunch of actors pretending to shake in front of a green screen.

If most viewers are like me, they’ll also be struck with a dawning realization that Johnson’s character is flat-out awful at his job. In the middle of the biggest disaster in modern history, he basically steals a rescue helicopter and looks for his wife and daughter as he blows past millions of people dying horribly around him. It’s like Peyton and screenwriter Carlton Cuse saw Man of Steel and said, “our movie’s hero can ignore way more innocent bystanders than Superman!”

If you’re a fan of visual spectacle, I guess San Andreas might be worth your time – but only if you see it on the big screen. I can’t imagine the movie will hold up at all once it hits Blu-ray and cable.

San Andreas is rated PG-13 for intense disaster action and mayhem throughout, and brief strong language.

Grade: C