Review: San Andreas

New York takes a well-deserved break from serving as filmmakers' favoured backdrop for mass destruction. This time, the disaster strikes the West Coast in San Andreas, a B-movie elevated by a game cast and grade-A special effects. This is a movie that delivers exactly what it promises: a disaster flick of epic proportions.

Leading the small group of people the audience is required to care for is Ray, a search-and-rescue helicopter pilot who has 600 documented rescues under his belt. Ray is played by Dwayne Johnson, which already bodes well for the film since Johnson has heaps of charisma and is one of the few hulking action stars that can convincingly save the day, toss off quips with ease, and also finesse his way around a dramatic scene. Ray is first seen rescuing a trapped teen from her car which has just gone over the mountain, a well-executed sequence that also establishes the screenwriters' penchant for introducing information and characters that come to be of little consequence. Hotshot Joby (Colton Haynes), for example, not only would make a good sidekick but a possible romantic interest for Ray's college-bound daughter Blake (the ever-bouncy Alexandra Daddario), but Joby barely makes it out alive in that opening rescue before never being seen or heard from again.

Reporter Serena (Archie Panjabi, who remains almost immaculate as everyone around her gets grimier by the minute) goes from filming Ray's heroics to interviewing Lawrence Hayes (Paul Giamatti), a seismology professor at CalTech who has developed a method of predicting earthquakes. His colleague Dr. Kim Park (Will Yun Lee) vouches for the method's efficacy by sacrificing his life, though he manages to hold off dying long enough to throw a little girl to safety before being swept away with the rest of the Hoover Dam.

As Nevada and California are rocked by a massive quake, Ray must forget about all those nameless faces screaming in terror and running for their lives so that he can track down his ex-wife Emma (Carla Gugino) and Blake as they scream in terror and run for their lives. While Blake is having the most extreme meet-cute with twentysomething Brit Ben (Hugo Johnstone-Burt), who has his wisecracking younger brother Ollie (Art Parkinson) in tow, Emma is lunching in a luxury rooftop lounge and reluctantly remembering the drowning death of her other daughter from years ago. There's a nifty tracking shot as Emma makes her way past a frantic mob to reach the rooftop for safety. During this shot, people run through doors only to discover there's nothing but air below, sides of building are suddenly exposed, and floors give way without hesitation.

It's difficult not to get caught up in the gleeful ruination of buildings as they crumble and topple. Landmarks like the Hollywood sign fall over like dominoes and the Golden Gate Bridge is smashed apart by a cruise ship. Director Brad Peyton and his crew go bonkers as they toss in disaster upon disaster. That first quake not enough for you? How about a second, larger quake to further flatten the cityscape? That second quake still not sating your appetite? How about a tsunami so that Ray can play chicken with a huge wall of water? San Andreas is accommodating like that. It's not the best entry in the disaster film genre, but it's solid and eager to please. Those qualities, along with Johnson, are enough to sell it over the line.

San Andreas

Directed by: Brad Peyton

Written by: Carlton Cuse

Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, Paul Giamatti, Alexandra Daddario, Archie Panjabi, Hugo Johnstone-Burt, Art Parkinson, Colton Haynes, Ioan Gruffudd