San Andreas (2015)

Mike McGranaghan wrote:The problem with modern day disaster movies is that CGI makes them want to be grand and visually spectacular, when story-wise they need to be small and intimate. It's impossible to focus on the millions of people affected by some sort of natural disaster, so movies weave sequences of mass destruction with simplistic plots about guys (and it's always men) stumbling through a series of catastrophes Forrest Gump-style in an effort to save their families. Most recently, the turgid 2012 took this course. Now San Andreas does the same thing – in 3D.

Paul Giamatti plays a Cal Tech professor who specializes in studying earthquakes. Mere moments after discovering that the computer program he designed can predict them, a massive one hits, ripping the Hoover Dam to shreds. Further analysis of the data suggests that there will be an even bigger one, right along the San Andreas Fault. When it does, in fact, arrive, buildings crumble, cracks in the earth emerge, and a tsunami is created. But our hero isn't the professor, it's Ray Gaines (Dwayne Johnson), a rescue helicopter pilot whose estranged wife Emma (Carla Gugino) is about to move in with her rich new boyfriend, Daniel (Ioan Gruffud). Naturally, Daniel is an ass, because of course he is. Ray's daughter Blake (Alexandra Daddario), meanwhile, gets trapped in San Francisco during the quake, so he vows to find and rescue her. Hmmm...guy whose ex-wife is dating a jerk navigates through a natural disaster to save his child. Where have we seen this before? Oh yeah, 2012.

Mike McGranaghan wrote:There's not a shred of originality anywhere in San Andreas. We've seen buildings crumble and fall in other movies. We've seen massive tidal waves pick up cruise ships and slam them around like toy boats in a bathtub. We've seen cars being flopped around as the ground rises up beneath them. And how many times can movies show us the Golden Gate Bridge shaking and collapsing? San Andreas isn't just repetitive because its images of destruction repeat themselves, it's repetitive because it relies on things that other films have already done.

The paint-by-numbers screenplay (by Lost scribe Carlton Cuse) doesn't help. It telegraphs every single plot twist well in advance. You can map out the entire story within the first ten minutes. For example, when architect Daniel says he's building the largest and sturdiest skyscraper in San Francisco, you just know Blake will end up there seeking safety. The way the script layers one over-the-top moment upon another is a bit hokey, as well. Ray and Emma can't simply try to navigate a motor boat up a tidal wave, they also have to dodge shipping containers being hurled over the side of a cargo ship. Severe danger is never enough in a picture like this; everyone has to be facing super-severe danger at every second.