SAN ANDREAS
Warner Bros
Reviewed by: Harvey Karten for Shockya. Databased on Rotten Tomatoes.
Grade: C
Director: Brad Peyton
Screenwriter: Carlton Cuse, story by André Fabrizio, Jeremy Passmore
Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Alexandra Daddario, Carla Gugino, Colton Haynes, Ioan Gruffudd, Archie Panjabi, Paul Giamatti
Screened at: Regal E-Walk, NYC, 5/27/15
Opens: May 29, 2015
New York may be ground zero, ever-mindful of another attack by our enemies, but at least you can negotiate with the Ayatollahs, can’t you? But you cannot mess with Mother Nature. You might predict what she will do next—tsunami, tornado, hurricane, earthquake, sleet-storm—but you can’t do much to prevent her from having her way. So while an 800-mile stretch of California land is located on the San Andreas Fault, an earthquake measuring 9 on the Richter Scale may be possible, but you can’t even retaliate after the devastation. So while sunny California is tempting, I’ll take Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island too.
If you want to know just how much devastation an earthquake can drum up, you have Brad Peyton’s “San Andreas,” a blockbuster with a script (?) by Carlton Cuse from a story by André Fabrizio and Jeremy Passmore. Peyton, known mostly for shorts and TV dramas, here knocks out a disaster drama in which a fire fighter named Ray (Dwayne Johnson) gets somewhat more than fifteen minutes of fame by preventing at least one fatality, namely that of his daughter Blake (Alexandra Daddario). When “San Andreas” is not dealing with one shock after another, something like part of our planet’s having a multiple orgasm, he’s wondering if he can win back his wife Emma (Carla Gugino), who has just served him with divorce papers and is moving into the quarters of her rich b.f. Daniel (Ioan Gruffudd). We learn that they split not because of any conflict in personality but solely because their younger daughter had died in a boating accident. But it looks like thanks to the series of earthquakes in which husband and estranged wife get together in a chopper to find their older daughter, they are likely to rebuild, just as Ray predicts San Francisco will rebuild. (In a concluding scene, an American flag flies down out of nowhere to a crescendo of music in the soundtrack.)
Blake is trapped in an underground garage together with a young and comely British engineer, Ben (Hugo Johnstone-Burt) who showed up for a job interview with his precocious kid brother Ollie (Art Parkinson), who was cast to allow 11-year-olds in the movie audience to relate to someone. So, what’s wrong with this movie? For one thing, the story is predictable. Did you really doubt that the daughter would be found and that a romance would develop between her and her new friend? Or that Ray and Emma would go their separate ways when the disaster is over? Or that Prof. Lawrence Hayes’s (Paul Giamatti) predictions of a number of after-shocks would not take place? Or that Archie Panjabi does not wish she could leave her newscasting role and return to the far better drama on “The Good Wife?”
Even worse is the cornball dialogue. Emma’s favorite expression is “Oh my God!” Is that the most original thing a person can say under the circumstances? Remember that this is a fictitious story, one in which you’re hoping the dialogue would not be of the everyday Facebook/Twitter type.
Worst of all, though, the CG goes overboard in showing the apocalyptic devastation: building collapse and crash into each other, a tsunami washes away the streets (this, by the way, cannot be brought about by an earthquake), and fires break out all over town; yet hardly anyone is killed or injured. But if you’re the sort of person who looks forward to summer blockbusters rather than someone who might enjoy an upcoming revival of “Madame Bovary” or its satirical cousin “Gemma Bovery,” you pays your money and you watch all hell break loose from the perfect safety of your theater seat.
Rated PG-13. 123 minutes. © Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online
Story – C-
Acting – C
Technical – B-
Overall – C
