Did the earth move for you, dear?
New on circuit: SAN ANDREAS Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, Alexandra Daddario, Paul Giamatti Director: Brad Peyton Rating: ★★★ ✩ as likely as our hopes of getting the president to #PayBackTheMoney.
If our heroine’s being rescued from a concrete ledge, you can bet that this surface will crumble to dust mere milliseconds after her shoe has lifted from it.
Famous landmarks that bite the dust are the Hoover Dam, near Vegas, and San Francisco’s Golden Gate bridge and the AT&T Stadium (a venue which plays host to the film’s best gag).
As for the cast, it’s just what the doctor ordered. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is an obvious choice as our latter-day Chuck Heston. If one had to have a travel mate in the midst of such widespread destruction, one couldn’t do better than hang with this towering heap of humanity. He isn’t built like the proverbial brick shithouse; he’s built like a town’s-worth of them. He’s also one of the few action heroes around who has simpatico.
Paul Giamatti, as a seismologist who tries to warn California about the impending mega-quake, looks for all the world like Richard Dreyfus, and gives the film its moments of faux-scientific gravitas. Carla Gugina, as Ray’s wife, is glamorously torn between two lovers.
As for Alexandra Daddario, who plays Ray’s daughter Blake, she’ll have male hormones (and I’m sure some female ones, too) doing hoop dances in the aisles. Trivia/cameo geeks should look out for Kylie Mynogue in a brief appearance.
The film-makers have stuck to a modest running time, which is admirable, in an era of overindulgent CGI spectacles which ramble on for three hours or more. (Are you listening, Peter Jackson?)
The template for disaster movies is clear: you set up some family drama and a potential romance, ignite the fireworks, and have everyone resolve their differences before the closing credits. In that regard, this movie ticks all the boxes. The only staple we don’t get is Ray rescuing a cat, which disappointed me; I won’t lie.
It mashes 1974’s Towering Inferno and Earthquake with a patriotic tweaking along the line of ’96’s Independence Day. As a visual punch-tothe-guts, it succeeds grandly.