The Rock

[Review] San Andreas

Before watching San Andreas, I was curious to know how long it has been since the last genuine, unabashed big-budget disaster movie. Naturally, this meant the first port of call was the filmography of Roland Emmerich, the German director behind Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow, whose career is virtually name-associated with the genre. As it turns out, his last true disaster movie (not to be confused with disastrous movies, of which he's released a couple since) was 2012 in, weirdly, 2009.

That was one year after the release of Iron Man, the movie which turned Marvel and the superhero movie into the face of the modern blockbuster. Given the mind-boggling destruction which the average comic book movie trades in - see Avengers: Age Of Ultron, or if you haven't by this point, don't bother - it's no surprise that the disaster movie has since fallen by the wayside. San Andreas feels like a throwback in that respect, but also very much conscious of the changing tastes of the time.

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San Andreas
Director: Brad Peyton
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: May 28th, 2015

Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock, as anyone who ever had a childhood will know him, plays a helicopter rescue pilot who sets out to reunite his family when the biggest earthquake in human history hits California as a result of the San Andreas fault starting to shift. There's approximately nothing more to the plot than that. That's far from a criticism, however, as simplicity is a much undervalued quality at a time when every new release seems to burden itself with increasingly convoluted world-building and sequel-seeding. San Andreas tells a straightforward story, going from A to B without any deviations along the way, then ends with an actual conclusion. It's one of the genre's strengths and, at the present time, a welcome relief from the norm.

If you've watched the trailer - see above - you know what to expect. Buildings collapse, people run and scream, the hero overcomes a personal trauma to save the day, and a fulsome female lead runs around in a wet vest. All boxes ticked. What makes the movie more distinct from its forebears is the presence of The Rock, who is quite unlike any disaster movie protagonist in living memory. The genre typically trades in everyman heroes, rising above their own shortcomings to survive, often with the assistance of a team, an onslaught by the overwhelming power of mother nature. One look at The Rock tells you that's not going to be the case here. Trying to pass off a 6'3 former wrestler as an everyman isn't going to work, and it's interesting how his physique alters the fundamental dynamic of the relationship between the genre and its protagonist.

Unlike disaster movies past, San Andreas' protagonist is never the one in danger. At worst, there are instances where he looks a mite concerned, but he exists almost entirely beyond the reach of the disaster itself. It's his daughter, played by Alexandra Daddario (required to do nothing but be sweet and look attractive, tasks she rises to meet triumphantly), who is the one caught in the chaos and finding herself, along with a bland English boyfriend-in-waiting and his sarcastic younger brother, perpetually trapped under collapsing buildings and rooms rapidly filling with water. His ex-wife, played by Carla Gugino, momentarily finds herself in similar trouble, but is soon rescued to join Mr. The Rock for some relationship therapy as the entire West Coast of the United States crumbles around them.

The Rock's essential invulnerability gives San Andreas something of the superhero movie vibe. Surprisingly, this works quite effectively. One of the genre's biggest obstacles is that it needs to go bigger each time in order to retain the level of awe-inspiring visual spectacle on which it overwhelmingly relies for its entertainment value, yet as the likes of Avengers proves, there's a point at which wanton destruction becomes so ludicrous that it's hard to care anymore. With Mr. The Rock (his 'character' has a name, but it's not important since he's basically The Rock in a differently coloured tight shirt) effectively watching the catastrophe unfold in the same way as the audience, he becomes one of the genre's more effective surrogate characters in recent memory. This also makes his family drama with Gugino's Ex-Mrs. The Rock slightly more relatable, helped by the two actors playing it with a unexpected amount of sincerity.

What also works is that the movie doesn't shy away from the human cost of such a massive disaster. There are a handful of shots whose sole function seems to be showing people being wantonly taken out by falling debris and collapsing structures, which is perhaps a little tasteless (although if that's your main concern, you're watching the wrong genre) but also gives the destruction a palpable sense of weight and loss. It's not enough to redeem the tiresomely uncanny valley-ish CGI depictions of cities being swallowed, enflamed and/or flooded, but that commitment to showing the arbitrary cruelty of its disaster demonstrates a rare and admirable strength of conviction.

Existing entirely outside The Rock's immediate vicinity is Paul Giamatti's seismologist, whose character's name also feels unimportant since he's basically the stock Voice Of Authority Played By A Respected Character Actor. It's nevertheless odd how tangential to the story he is, even by the genre's standards, not sharing a single scene or communication with the three leads. He gets to run away from one disaster - saving a little girl and watching his ethnic minority colleague be sacrificed in a scene which leaves no cliché unturned - shortly and with no small sense of irony after predicting the inevitability of such an event, after which he's stuck delivering grave warnings into a television camera. While such roles are part and parcel of the genre, the time spent in his character's company feels very much like time-wasting (other than, perhaps, to dispel the myth that the best course of action in an earthquake should be to hide in a doorway, when under a table is in fact the better course of action), an impressive feat for a movie coming in under 2hrs long. I should probably post an image of Mr. Giamatti at this point, but if we're honest, I think if we'd all rather see Alexandra Daddario, so let's go with her.

While Giamatti's scenes are strictly disposable, conveying information which could just as easily by offered through radio broadcasts or other background noise, it's to San Andreas' credit that it otherwise cuts to the chase when it comes to reaching the big events that audiences will be paying to see. There's approximately no time for such inconveniences as logic, but again, if that's your concern then the genre is most definitely not right for you. Stuff happens entirely to fulfil audience expectations rather than real world, or even internal logic, and that's not a bad way to go about approaching this kind of material. The Rock has a singular goal, to reunite his family, and despite being a rescue pilot who has commandeered a helicopter at a time when one would assume all airborne vehicles to be invaluable rescue resources, has absolutely no interest in helping anyone other than two specific women, who rather helpfully, are the only two people he really comes across anyway. In one amusing scene, his ex-wife (who has, inexplicably, been lunching with Kylie Minogue) happens to be the very first person he sees upon flying into Los Angeles.

It's lightweight, disposable fare, easy to mindlessly absorb with friends and laugh about afterwards. As a genre turn, it's a perfectly solid one, occasionally edging towards poignance with its willingness to engage ideas of loss on both personal and wider scales. Despite the big budget, it's nevertheless difficult not to see its self-aware campiness as having been undercut to a large extent by the likes of Sharknado, itself even more unrestrained in its audience-pleasing ridiculousness. The Rock proves he can do solid work without the safety net of irony, nicely underplaying a protagonist whom audiences are expected to take at least somewhat seriously despite the events surrounding him. Gugino and Daddario are entirely serviceable in their limited parts and Ioan Gruffudd is suitably slimy as Ex-Mrs. The Rock's new husband, whose evilness is defined by his riches in a movie produced, directed, written by and starring presumably very rich people. Make of that what you will. Regardless, San Andreas is decent enough multiplex filler, a throwback with just enough tweaks to keep it interesting, if never exactly engaging. It's not exactly good, per se, but far from a disaster.

by Xander Markham