[Movie Review] San Andreas (2015)
Director: Brad Peyton
Writers: Carlton Cuse, Andre Fabrizio, Jeremy Passmore
Runtime: 114 min
Main Cast:
- Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as Ray
- Alexandra Daddario as Blake
- Carla Cugino as Emma
- Colton Haynes as Joby
- Ioan Gruffudd as Daniel Reddick
Review: by Faith & Marie
We were eagerly awaiting to see this movie due to the great cast and hopes of seeing some phenomenal special effects, but during all of the epic destruction scenes, the movie's plot and characters were a little less than appealing.
The movie starts with Ray (Dwayne Johnson), a Los Angeles Fire Department search and helicopter pilot and his team, saving a teen girl who’s car was knocked over cliff. Ray’s expertise in his field is not matched by his interpersonal skills as he is then reminded when his estranged wife Emma (Carla Gugino) serves him with divorce papers and then announces she will be moving into her wealthy boyfriend Daniel’s (Ioan Gruffudd) mansion, along with their daughter Blake (Alexandra Daddario). Ray’s plans to have a weekend trip with Blake, up to her new school, are shot once a major earthquake hits Nevada, sending him and his team to the scene. Daniel then offers Blake a ride on his private jet to school in San Francisco. The Los Angeles Fire Department is unaware that the Nevada earthquake is part of more tremblers headed towards Los Angeles which is predicted by Lawrence Hayes (Paul Gamatti), a seismology professor at CalTech. Before word is announced to the public, Emma is already in a high rise restaurant to meet her boyfriend’s sister as buildings begin toppling down around her. Already in flight and flying by himself, Ray picks Emma up from the roof in his chopper and they fly to retrieve their daughter.
Blake has already been in San Francisco when another earthquake hits and she finds herself trapped in an underground garage. She manages to find her cell phone to call Ray and give him her location, while she is then rescued by Ben (Hugo Johnstone-Burt) and his younger brother Ollie (Art Parkinson). The three of them team up to quickly find the safest routes to meet up with Ray and Emma.
What We Liked:
Our favorite part of the movie was when Blake finally see’s her parents (Ray and Emma) searching for her in a motor boat and she grabs their attention before the building she is in starts to sink. As water is constantly flushing inside the building Ray makes his way into the building to save his daughter. Ray finds Blake trapped in an enclosed room under water and tries to get her out. He eventually then pushes his way through to retrieve Blake who was drowning. He tried reviving her but while Emma is then taming her way into the building with the motor boat. While on the boat Ray keeps trying to revive Blake and when everyone thought there was no hope of her survival, she finally woke up. After all of the dramatic events that took place in the movie, it was nice to see that one of the main characters had not died.
What We Didn’t Like:
Although the movie was entertaining and kept our attention, it was a little silly at times and slightly irritating. Some of the scripting in the movie was “dumb silly” and just all around bad. It seemed to have some major ad-libbing going on. There were also pauses of dramatic effect with some annoying music showing Dwayne Johnson right before he did something big in the movie, which was annoying. There were also some scenes where you could see that there was a back drop and you knew it wasn’t real.
Summary
We were entertained by the movie in different ways. Sometimes we laughed and sometimes we were just perplexed by the bad writing and special effects. The example shown of putting family first was touching but did not sway us from seeing flaws in the movie. Due to it being a Dwayne Johnson movie it wasn’t all bad, but definitely would not be eager to see it again.
User Review
( votes)Images Courtesy of IMDB
