San Andreas – Movie Review by C.K. MacNamara

Director: Brad Peyton

Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, Alexandra Daddario, Colton Haynes

The hulking wall of eldritch muscle known to us mortals as Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson returns from his escapades in Furious 7 to star in another absurd action fest – where a day is not complete without some sort of apocalyptic calamity and human civilisation can be equated to God kicking a sand castle.

The earth has had enough of humanity’s arrogance in having non-destroyed cities and is determined to remove San Francisco from the plain of existence. Johnson himself is crammed into a rescue-chopper and tasked with rescuing his estranged daughter from the biblical destruction as the San Andreas Fault line goes into palpitations reminiscent of Roland Emmerich’s 2012. The cathartic mess is even topped with the clichéd frantic scientist whose warnings of impending disaster have gone unheeded for too long!

As one would expect, scripting and narrative are used merely to string action sequences together, with Johnson’s search for his daughter being interjected with brooding quips. “This is just like the time my other daughter drowned” he murmurs as a tsunami crests over his shoulder, glinting off his bald head.

Despite the level of destruction, there is little of actual substance to comment on; buildings fall down, people trip over or are pinned under rubble at inopportune times, and characters pause from their fleeing to inform the audience of useful earthquake related safety information, similar to a 1950s PSA.

The film ends with the cast perched atop a scenic overlook, with the destroyed city stretching to the horizon below. ‘What do we do now?’ burbles a character as Johnson stares into the middle-foreground and whispers ‘we rebuild’, an American flag unfurling behind him.  The audience then spends the remainder of the day recovering from the experience.