Crashing buildings, earthquakes, tsunamis and explosions? Their is only one man for the job. The Rock! In San Andreas
So, is it any good?
Disaster strikes when the world’s biggest earthquake hits the west coast of America. Ray (Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson) a helicopter rescue pilot must save his estranged wife and daughter at all costs before they are killed by further aftershocks and crashing buildings.
If you were looking for a good hard plot you’ve come to the wrong place my friend. I’d imagine the script for San Andreas would be similar to taking some of the biggest action sequences from past disaster movies putting them in a blender and pouring it into a word processor. But as far as my eyes can tell it’s all pretty colours and explosions, so what does it matter? You pay for your ticket knowing what you’re in for and you get your monies worth and then some. San Andreas is 1 hour 30 of intense action scenes, destruction and mayhem and there ain’t nothing wrong with that.
CGI in San Andreas is amazing; I think we are at the point now where it is becoming fairly hard to tell what is real and what isn’t. San Andreas needs to be viewed inside a cinema, in fact watching it at home without the surround sound the screen filling you retinas, I’d imagine it would be a pretty cruddy flick. The acting is well shotty to say the least, the emotion and characters are flawed, really all it has going for it is its big set pieces, throw that on a small screen and all you’ve got is a SyFy movie of the week.
The Rock and co really have luck on their side; everything just seems to work out for them. Hole in the road, no problems, the guy that warns them about it just happens to work at a nearby airport. Water levels rising no problems there are super speed boats right next to them. While I guess this is somewhat plausible I just find it highly unlikely in the situation.
I just need to give you a warning before you cast your eyes on the scene. Kylie Minogue makes a cameo appearance in San Andreas. Maybe you won’t have the same reaction I did, but it took me right out of the flick, if you’ve seen Street Fighter you’ll know why. Kylie’s acting makes Kristen Stewart look like Meryl Streep. it’s such a short scene too maybe her acting was so bad that the rest of her scenes were cut, thank god for that.
You have to take San Andreas as a big old block of Swiss cheese, its cheesy as they come, it has a but ton of holes in it but damned if I say it’s not a fun and tasty ride! On a side note what’s with disaster movies and the main leads always being separated or divorced, then attempting to rekindle their relationship in the end of the movie. seriously Independence Day, 2012, Twister, Deep Impact, the list goes on. this seems to be a bigger trend then using skyscrapers exploding…well I won’t go that far.