I’m a fan of watching shitty disaster movies because they’re always the cheesiest balls of ass, so have a bad review.
Did any of you ever hear of San Andreas? No? That really wouldn’t surprise me. If you’re wondering it came out in 2015, and the most notable actor in it was The Rock. Literally everyone else might as well have a question mark for a face because I couldn’t point them out in a crowd if I tried. They are just that forgettable.
We start out with our protagonist (played by our one notable actor) having to save a woman from a car improbably stuck on the side of an almost-sheer cliff face. He flies in with his helicopter, lowers a dude to help her, everyone almost dies but then they don’t because he’s just that good at being a pilot, and then they all fly home and live happily ever after.
I should also note that during that scene he flies his helicopter under a rock ledge which should be entirely impossible to fly back out from under, but this narrative isn’t big on paying attention to details like that. Don’t worry about it.
Through a few establishing scenes we learn that he has become distant from his family and pines for the days in which they still used to be a loving unit, but his wife’s new husband is a rich businessman and The Rock is far too busy being a handsome muscular superhero who saves people on the daily to ever be capable of loving her properly, and it’s obvious that his daughter needs a better father figure in her life than him. Obviously.
There are also some seismologists involved in this plot, and they’ve discovered a magical new way to detect earthquakes before they happen. Unfortunately for them, a test of their new method goes horribly wrong when the dam they’re setting up shop in collapses during one of said earthquakes, tragically killing one of their colleagues by somehow impaling him through the foot with a piece of rebar when all he did was awkwardly trip over. But he saved a kid, so we can’t really feel sad about it.
The seismologists get back to their university and begin poring over their data. One of them notices a terrible pattern that implies the entirety of Los Angeles and possibly California itself could soon be destroyed, but before they can let everyone know it all happens anyway. Perfect dramatic timing!
A few montages of destruction happen, with The Rock’s wife ending up on top of a collapsing building whilst everyone else dies around her. Through a dramatic and ridiculously miraculous series of action scenes The Rock arrives with his helicopter and rescues her off the roof, right before the building finally gives way and collapses/explodes.
As an aside, the funniest thing about the flying sequences (of which there are a couple) is looking at the background air shots of LA while they’re up there and seeing everything be completely fine, then cutting to the ground shots where all the buildings are swaying like palm trees in the wind and everything is on fire. It’s a small but crucial detail they apparently decided no one would notice.
His daughter meanwhile is with her new father-in-law, in a parking garage. Their car is disabled and she ends up trapped, and the businessfather quickly panics and abandons his new teenage daughter-in-law, leaving her for dead. Fortunately there’s two brothers she met earlier nearby, both with horribly fake british accents, and they somehow manage to pry her out. This will definitely further their romantic chemistry, pre-established by a small scene where was applying for a job and they have a very awkward scene showing off their total lack of chemistry.
A variety of cheap action scenes follow as the two groups attempt to reunite, including but not limited to:
-a helicopter crash in a parking lot
-a wannabe smooth getaway scene in a car advertisement
-almost crashing said car in a ditch
-flying in a small plane and again crash landing in a field somewhere
-listening to dramatic announcements on the radio
-walking
Speaking of listening to dramatic announcements, soon our protagonists hear the lovely news that there’s going to be a pool party, and the whole city is invited! So they all run to high ground - or, in the case of the parents to a boat, which they then drive out into the harbour along with half of the city. Here we get a very fun scene of them attempting to climb an almost 90-degree water surface (aka a tsunami) in a small fishing trawler. By some blasphemy of Hollywood physics, they make it.
Oh hey, remember the business stepfather dude from earlier? Well, he’s on the golden gate bridge, and you know what happens to recognizable landmarks in disaster films! So he got his comeuppance, and I’m sure it made everyone clap in some obscure movie theatre somewhere. One I will never visit, if there is any hope left in the world.
The tsunami continues doing its thing and wrecks what’s left of the city, trapping the daughter and her new friends in some collapsing skyscraper. The rest of the movie is exactly what you’d expect: Dad and mom try to rescue kid, kid almost dies but doesn’t because that would be too sad and you already know that as an audience member so there’s literally no dramatic tension whatsoever, everyone grows closer as people and as a family because that’s what surviving through adversity does to people.
Of course there’s also an end for the seismologists as well, because their work is important. So they have an interview with a reporter, explain to everyone what has happened and what it means, and then what I assume is an editing fuckup occurs as the reporter lady just decides to claim that the government ignored the seismologists warnings despite them never being able to send them in the first place. Just… no fucks given, here.
In conclusion, this is a movie you should probably watch only to play a disaster movie drinking game during. Otherwise, spend your time elsewhere.
