Director Brad Peyton teams up
with Dwayne Johnson once more (the last time was Journey 2) to bring us 2015’s biggest action-adventure disaster
film. On surface level you’d expect it to be a typical Rock film of big guns and grit – and you wouldn’t be surprised. But
there are elements of family weaved throughout, added to sheer thematic chaos,
that won’t make it a forgettable film anytime soon.
(On one side it was great to jog
my memory of GCSE Geography and the theory behind plate tectonics, fault lines
and the San Andreas fault. On another side, it was a wakeup call that ‘San
Andreas’ does not only refer to the Grand Theft Auto game.)
San Andreas tells the tale of a shattering
earthquake striking California. It’s an inevitable every man for himself
situation – it can’t be a Man Saves the World film because it is physically
impossible. Instead, we have two parallel stories running with a family tie
between them. Dwayne Johnson isn’t a hero of the film – he’s the hero of his
family. He plays all round nice guy Ray on a mission to rescue his family from
the bad guys. Sound familiar? Essentially it's like Liam Neeson's Taken. Except instead of
sketchy gang members, it's Mother Nature. And instead of beating people up, Ray
can do basically everything (including beating people up). Throughout the film,
I was repeatedly reminded of his Rock status. Ray is a Los Angeles Fire
Department rescue-helicopter pilot, and you’ll soon discover he’s a man of many
talents.
I watched
San Andreas at a press screening in which there were frequent points of
unanimous laughter; the only problem is, I don’t think it was meant to be
funny. Ok, so you’ve just seen people crushed to death, then cheated death by the skin of your teeth…and straight after
decide it’s the perfect time to sit and have a calm, deep
conversation about why your marriage broke down. Ok. But then you realise this
is The Rock, and this is a section of the film where he is sitting there. And
he’s talking about his feelings. Ok – more popcorn.
The most
incredulous fact is how he is just so
cool about it all. Walking
out of a burning building unscathed? Cool. Nearly drove off a cliff? Cool. Ran
out of options? Oh wait there’s a boat over there. Oh yeah – that’s
because he's The Rock. It's ridiculous, but the ridiculousness adds an element
of understated (most probably accidental - we'll never know) humour. If it
weren’t The Rock, it wouldn’t work. I’ll let most of these slide…
The cast asides from Johnson
include ex-wife Carla Gugino (Spy Kids,
Mr Popper’s Penguins), daughter Alexandra Daddario (Percy Jackson) who looks eerily like her on-screen mother but
exhibits moments of toughness where you begin to believe she is the daughter of
her on-screen father, and Oscar-nominated Paul Giamatti as the token scientist
(he glides effortlessly into his role). There's also a brief brilliant cameo from Kylie Minogue.
In terms of being a disaster movie, it
really is on a wholly destructive scale. Chaos is present everywhere (the last
I’ve seen on this scale was 2014’s Godzilla).
And you have to hand it to the CGI team for destroying San Francisco and
portraying it in a scarily lifelike way.
Peyton's film demonstrates elements of survival, unbreakable family ties, and trust and loyalty. This loyalty in particular can be a little far-fetched. Daughter Blake meets Ben and five minutes later he's risking his life to save her. Trusting Action Man Ray, on the other hand, would be remarkably easy. With his fatherly determination and ability to take on anything/everything, he's your guy. But it's still nice to see rare glimpses of emotion and underlying hurt, attempting to break through everything else stereotypical in the film.
In light of the recent earthquake
in Nepal, you could say it brought a whole new perspective to the plot. Yes, it’s
fictional but at the same time, the level of destruction and aftermath is a
very real thing that happens to real people. The helplessness is captured and to see it in such a format is thought-provoking outside of the film's boundaries. There's another message here: Earth is beautiful but so very fragile.
San Andreas is an all-round good big budget disaster film to kick off your summer in the cinema. It's not hugely inventive or original, but then again I highly doubt it's trying to be. Yes, it's predictable and yes it's a cheesy in places and you could question the chemistry and cheesy timing of chemistry... but it's The Rock. If you can let everything else slide because of this, you'll enjoy even the most bizarre scenes of San Andreas. But if not, there's a high chance it will obliterate into your distant memory as soon as the last poster (the posters are everywhere) has been taken down. To sum up the film in one
sentence: Is there anything The Rock can’t
do!?
San Andreas is in cinemas on 28th May 2015.
- Wednesday, May 27, 2015
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