'San Andreas' review, starring Dwayne Johnson, Alexandra Daddario and Paul Giamatti

If Roland Emmerich taught Disaster Film 101 in some film school somewhere, chances are he'd give an A and a grape scratch-and-sniff sticker to boot to Brad Peyton’s San Andreas. The new earthquake film is as reverent to the natural disaster blockbusters of the mid ‘90s-early ‘00s as can be. And while there’s certainly fine spectacles, occasionally engaging set pieces, a committed cast on board and even an initial charm to its love of big-budget films of past, these can only do such much for a film as generic and by-the-book as this.

The character tropes are all here. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is the daring Los Angeles Fire Department recue-helicopter pilot Ray, who ultimately must be the hero L.A. needs most when California is overtaken by the worst earthquakes in history. He’s also the husband and dad too overwhelmed by his job and a family tragedy beforehand to focus on his family. Because of this, his wife Emma (Carla Gugino) are soon to be separated, just as rich a-hole Daniel Riddick (Ioan Gruffudd) plans to take over husband duties and father-in-law responsibilities for their daughter Blake (Alexandra Daddario). Don’t bother to ask how the Samoan Ray could father an Italian/Irish Blake, because San Andreas nor Peyton or his screenwriter Carlton Cuse have any answers.

Also, Paul Giamatti is Dr. Lawrence Hayes, the one scientist in the state with any clue what’s going on, especially after his work partner Dr. Kim Park (Will Yun Lee) is taken by this disaster. And then Hugo Johnstone-Burt and Art Parkinson are Ben and Ollie, two British blokes who wind up with Blake as they, she and — before them — Emma must be saved by Ray to learn values on family and commitment. After all, it only takes the deaths of millions, the destruction of national landmarks and the worst earthquake ever for our leads to remember how important it is to stay together.

San Andreas is a dumb movie, and in-between property destruction and general mayhem there’s a sense of self-awareness about this. The problem lies not in false intentions but that it only occasionally lives up to its promise. The plot is tight, there’s thankfully a gleefully goofy sense of humor throughout and the special effects — at least when the California earthquakes begin — are mostly pretty good, save for some terrible green screen here and there and one-or-two cartoony effects. And while it’s respectful to its disaster porn peers, it often forgets the movies it emulates were originally, quite frankly, pretty bad.

In mimicking Emmerich’s Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow or his later 2012, it fails to address any of their misakes and only adds to their problems by not offering much new or exciting to the genre. The jokes here mostly all fall flat, the characters are incredibly one-note and it has a hard time balancing the stakes with a sense of fun. Perhaps the latter comes more from how often earthquakes appear on headlines of late, but Peyton disjoints the sense of terror and thrill between moments of widespread obliteration.

More awkward are San Andreas’ emotional cues, with references to Ray and Emma’s lost daughter being as clumsy, ham-fisted and indirectly hilarious as possible. In these moments especially, it’s clear that, for as straightforward as Peyton’s film appears, there’s a general distrust of its audience's intellect. While even Emmerich’s best movies were clear intentioned in their idiocy, there was at least a little confidence in his audience to figure things out. Here, everything is overly explained and every character talks down to the audience, both with hacky dialogue and overly obvious visual cues.

Cuse, also a creator on Bates Motel and developer on The Strain, lets San Andreas have some humor but his writing feels too mechanical. It’s not afraid to talk about the claustrophobic terror of widespread natural disasters, but its lazy emotional approach — with many of the clumsy emotional beats feeling like the product of reshoots — offers no genuine investment to the story, despite Peyton trying to cramp sympathy for these lone figures amid Mother Nature’s genocide.

Giamatti, though, does give San Andreas and its dialogue more gravitas than it deserves, like the professional he is. Likewise, The Rock attempts to make Ray feel human, but often his charisma and presence is muted, as he’s a mere sideshow in the middle of CG obliteration. Gruffudd does everything in his power not to twirl an invisible mustache, and Gugino sadly disappoints in her scene chewing, even though there’s barely any scenery around her to nibble on.

Additionally, Johnstone-Burt is boringly bumbling, Parkinson’s a forgettable and ineffective comedic relief and the dubiously aged Daddario is mostly reduced to looking pretty or helping others run from destruction, if she doesn’t need saved herself. At the very least, Peyton, Cuse and their team make the mildest efforts for her not to be a plain Jane damsel in distress. That’s a fairly flimsy compliment, though.

It’s not hard to predict what you’ll get from San Andreas. The characters are there to carry the story with the mildest of emotions from points A to B, and the spectacles are as bombastic and high-scale as some hope they’ll be but also grow dull in their repetition. For as on-the-nose as it is, though, its more genuine stakes and more grounded characters make this less unbearable than last year’s Into the Storm. That said, as Peyton’s film grows more monotonous, what’s most enjoyable is the irony that a movie about the world’s biggest earthquake can’t break any new ground.