Mother Nature shows her massive CGI wrath in San Andreas.
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| "Those are my Fast and Furious pals down there. I wish they could come along for the ride." |
The deeply flawed, summer blockbuster known as San Andreas cracks cinemas wide open this weekend with another movie about death and devastation. Much like every other entry in the genre, San Andreas is short sighted in its exposition and turns its effect ridden nose up at real science. This is a big budget conglomeration of everything we've seen before in one of these disaster films that turns The Rock into a robotic instrument with not one ounce of character or emotion. Without the dynamic of other action heroes around him, he flails and ultimately fails with an action flick hell bent on proving he's nearly lifeless without a strong support system.
Most of the disaster porn movies have real issues with any type of scientific backbone. San Andreas takes the cake. To say we've seen it all before is a massive understatement. From poor "science" based story development to defiant visuals that make no sense, San Andreas is nothing more than a big, dumb, translucent movie that leaves most of the fun with its overwrought predecessor, 2012. With a paycheck cashing Paul Giamatti starring as the highly stressed, fact finding seismologist of the hour, this summer flick is about as fun as driving your car into an oncoming tsunami. Nothing. I repeat, nothing about this movie resonated with me. And that's hard coming from someone that loves mass destruction and thousands upon thousands of onscreen deaths.
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| "Stop staring." |
San Andreas is like a broken mirror image of 2012. Most of the film is spent jumping from vehicle to vehicle. We get helicopters. We get planes. We get four wheel drive vehicles. And we get boats. Sound familiar? With sheerly insipid lines like, "We need to get away from these buildings", audiences will be numb to the hackneyed character development and the unengaging story that is way too similar to every other family plot haunting cinemas these days. With an opening scene that screams Cliffhanger rip off, San Andreas has not one ounce of originality or sentimentality. If they had worked out the core story a bit more, this wouldn't have been nearly as bad.
If you can handle people doing stupid things and enjoy watching Alexandra Daddario show off her chest for a brief stint, this might be an enjoyable trip to the the theater. However, this one might be best served in the comfort of your own home. Fifteen bucks for this hellish experiment in 3D theatrical suffering is nothing I can strongly recommend. You, as a theater goer have seen this movie before. And you'll see it again. Some of the effects may look grand and there are a few minutes of tension. Other than that, it's hard to smell what The Rock is cookin' with this absolute dud.
Everybody run!!! We need to get away from these movies!!!
-CG