We all know The Rock rocks, but there’s one big question: can he shoulder the weight of an entire action film on his vast, muscular shoulders?
The short answer: no. But damn, he sure does give it a try in San Andreas.
Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson stars as Ray Gaines, a Los Angeles Fire Department Helicopter Operator in an earthquake disaster movie that is shaky at best.
The first tremors were felt early on in the piece, with the opening scene delivering sub-par visual effects of a car crash. It’s a poor start for a film we know is about to destroy the entire east of coast of the United States, and I’m feeling a bit wary about the computer generated portions of this movie already.
Thankfully, the action scenes to follow come on so huge and so often you won’t really have time to critique the images – your eyes will be too busy trying to focus on what’s next.
Following the timely creation of an ‘earthquake predicting thing’ seismologist Lawrence Hayes (Paul Giametti) discovers just a little too late that the San Andreas fault near Los Angeles and San Francisco is about the shake the lives of every citizen: both literally and metaphorically. The Rock is on call in his chopper and turbulent times are ahead with the imminent arrival of the worst earthquakes on record.
Have you seen The Day after Tomorrow where Dennis Quaid searches New York for his son following a massive tidal wave and flood? San Andreas is basically the West Coast version of that movie.
I can only find one word to describe the screenplay; and that word is ‘diarrhoea’. Cut-and-paste story tropes and characters, weak and convenient plot development and a confusing Kylie Minogue cameo. Gone are the days that good special effects were enough to sell a film, as this one barely cuts the mustard in that department anyway.
I didn’t want to hate this movie… in fact I want to like it. The Rock is great! He even laces up his acting boots for some real emotion in this. Perhaps the film’s title sets up the wrong kind of expectations? Ask most Millennials what they want to se in a movie called San Andreas and they’ll probably tell you about the awesome Grand Theft Auto volume of the same name.
To find it’s simply a lacklustre compilation of excessive destruction in lieu of narrative is disappointing, but not nearly as disappointing as the movie not seeing The Rock starring as C.J., the African American gangster, in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Now that’s a movie with a storyline that I’d watch in a second.
San Andreas gets a 4/10 on my Richter scale.
