Review: “San Andreas” is a natural disaster

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Socrates Kanetakis, Podcast Editor

This, this will be a big one. It will rock even the biggest of rocks.

In director Brad Peyton’s recipe for disaster, ‘San Andreas,’ Ray (Dwayne Johnson) is a helicopter rescue pilot (convieniently also boat driver, sky-diver and plane pilot again) who will drive, fly, swim and skydive to save his daughter Blake (Alexandra Daddario) who is entangled in San Francisco, the epicenter of the world’s largest series of earthquakes; a 9.6 on the Richter scale off the coast of California, only to destroy everything. (Yes, it does sound silly, but you know what’s scary ? It can actually happen.)

There are some redeeming qualities, but the negatives bury this movie deeper than any earthquake ever could.

The graphics are good. Not perfect, not stellar, not flawless. Just good. The Rock proves to be a passable action-drama hero, even though his Hercules-like-masculinity and ability to move building debris under water does make him look kinda ridiculous. Watching the San Andrea’s fault violently crack open half of California like a walnut, sinking its cities under a 500 foot tsunami and toppling the highest of skyscrapers on top of one another, makes this movie a simple good; a decent Saturday night flick to watch, if that.

And here comes the quake:

The CGI looks unfinished in many parts, acting is stone-cold and cringe-worthy, plot is more ridiculous than anything (though what disaster movie’s plot isn’t ridiculous? [although that Gremlins movie did it quite nice] Pacing was way off; there was more transitioning between the Rock and his wife, his daughter and her British-hunk-of-a-conveniently-placed-boyfriend, as well as her scummy stepfather Daniel (you had one job Daniel, one job).

Some of the destruction scenes in the movie are pretty far fetched (‘Furious 7’ level far fetched) but it will be given the suspension of disbelief here, I mean, it is a movie. There are so many more things to annihilate, demolish and destroy in this movie, but no. I would seriously advise anyone to watch it. Yes, it is a waste of time but if you look at it as a comedy, it’s quite great.

‘San Andreas’ is a cheap copy cat of ‘2012’ which I hold so close to my heart.  It has few redeeming qualities which are not to be discussed outside the theater because they consist of simple vowels that sound like “Oooooh”, “Ahhhh” and “Wow”. Basically, if you are in a “I want to smash something” kind of mood and wish to watch something break, go watch San Andreas.

Final Verdict: 5/10