Have you seen the movies 2012, The Day after Tomorrow, Independence Day, Into the Storm, or any other disaster film? Well, if you have, you have also seen San Andreas, one of the most clichéd movies I have ever seen in my entire life. You already know how this entire movie is going to play out. It will start with some minor destruction, continue into a lecture being given by a teacher so that the writers do not have to think of creative ways to tell us information and instead spoon feed us vital background, the main character will be conveniently located at the center of the action, and then for the last act just reference any action movie ever made to see how the climax and falling action takes place. While everything is extremely predictable, I must admit that in terms of this movie just being a fun visual feast (although that is not at all what the tone conveys), I can say that most of the action and destruction scenes were pretty well done and actually extremely intense at some parts.
For a summer popcorn film, the producers of this film were able to exceed expectations. Rock Johnson didn't spew out more than a couple one-liners. The cliché bad guy didn't go over the top. The family soap opera was done tastefully even though it was as flimsy as a soap bubble. Paul Giamatti provided some welcome energy, even though he is stuck with some of THE WORST dialogue ever heard on film. His scenes are brief, giving us no time to explain in great detail how there new earthquake predicting thingamajig works. And who cares, the message of impending doom is crossed off the checklist.
At its heart, a movie like San Andreas is a kind of ideological propaganda: the supremacy of the all-American nuclear family over any chaos the world can throw at it. This film mixes in a strong dose of patriotism (from Dwayne Johnson's heroic status as an Afghan War veteran, to the unfurling of the American flag from the broken Golden Gate bridge at the end) to supplement this family-over-all message.
There's a lot of action in this movie, most of it kind of fun, especially an impromptu skydiving sequence that's pretty neat and ends with a one-liner from Johnson that made me smile. Other than that, San Andreas is exactly what you want if you're looking for a disaster movie.
6.7/10·IMDb
49%·Rotten Tomatoes
43%-Metacritics
6/10-verdict
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