I adore disaster films. I pretty much adore everything they bring to the table. Since I first saw The Poseidon Adventure and Towering Inferno, two outstanding popcorn films that maintained a high level of tension throughout, I have been a huge admirer of this genre. Unfortunately, the recent wave of disaster films hasn’t been that good, none of them, including 2012, Extinction, War of the Worlds, and The Core, have been able to create that suspense or intensity. It’s reasonable to say that I wasn’t entirely off base because San Andreas appeared to be identical to the lower-quality disaster films mentioned above at first glance.
How to Download San Andreas (2015)
You can download the film from a digital store. You can also stream it. Click on the Download button at the end of this review and make your choice.
The Movie Review
After a devastating earthquake strikes California, Raymond “Ray” Gaines, a fire department air rescue pilot, is forced to battle all the forces of nature in order to save his daughter Blake and his estranged wife Emma who are trapped someplace in San Francisco. A seismologist named Dr. Lawrence Hayes cautions people that a bigger earthquake is on the horizon, as they all work to recover from the damage.
Popcorn disaster films like San Andreas were common in the 1970s, and while their plots were contrived and forced, they were solid entertainers because they were fresh and unique. Now, they feature cutting-edge special effects but they’re still just as contrived as ever. The overly clichéd, highly predictable, and simply trite story is absurd in every way.
In order to destroy the aircraft and rescue his daughter and wife, Ray utilizes it. He somehow gets away with stealing a boat, an airplane from an actual hangar, AND a pickup truck to save his family. In the midst of the confusion, his ex-wife Emma is just trying to find a solution to all of her difficulties with Ray, in one of the most forced love stories ever. Not to mention, despite the wreckage and chaos, the telephone lines are functioning flawlessly even if the cell service is completely gone.
There’s also a sequence where Ray maneuvers a motor boat through the rubble and potential survivors of the city as though he were out speedboating.
The acting in San Andreas is a mixed bag, none of the actors seem to be playing a character. It’s just okayish, I can’t hate on them if they weren’t interested in saying some of the worst studio-produced corny lines ever. Poor Paul Giamatti seems to be relegated to playing himself, meanwhile, Dwayne Johnson and Carla Gugino, are also stuck portraying themselves in the film. Hugo Johnstone-Burt, Alexandra Daddario, and Paul Giamatti provide solid backing though, even if their roles aren’t that particularly demanding.
I hope no one expects any ground-breaking dialogue or a compelling plot here, because the creators of this film have incorporated every cliched plot device and corny line of conversation that they could scavenge.
The Visuals
It’s no surprise that the special effects are unquestionably the film’s best feature. Normally, I don’t like CGI since it often just looks artificial and detracts from the tale, but with the advancement of technology, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to detect the impact, which is fantastic.
This film features a ton of destruction, and I must confess that the special effects give the impression that everything you see is actually happening. This made the action sequences feel even more visceral, as the body count in this film kept on rising throughout the run time.
Its visual effects and CGI might be fantastic, but San Andreas has some really bland camera work that takes away from the overall atmosphere that the film is trying to lay down. Moreover, there’s a ton of issues when it comes to the film’s color grading, which makes it seem muddy at times, although that should have worked given the plot.
The Music
The music is a big letdown as well, feeling like just another collection of mass-produced studio tunes that you hear in every American action film these days, nothing original.
The Verdict
You will have fun and it will absolutely be the time killer you’ve been looking for if you know what to expect. That’s pretty much all you can get out of this, which is fair because that’s what this movie was attempting to accomplish. San Andreas is undoubtedly a piece of undemanding entertainment. However, it’s not a movie I’m eager to watch again. If you look at it in comparison to other works in this crowded subgenre, it’s surprisingly not bad at all.
