‘San Andreas’ brings destruction, but shows its faults

Photo by Jasin Boland
Carla Gugino hurriedly being led to safety by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in 'San Andreas'.

Brad Peyton’s new disaster movie, San Andreas, spares no amount of death, destruction and action, but there’s a fault line the size of California in its character development.
When the San Andreas fault-line sets off a series of 9-plus magnitude earthquakes throughout the length of California, search and rescue helicopter pilot, The Rock, Dwayne Johnson, is forced into a race against time to retrieve and save his daughter from San Francisco, the epicenter of the earthquakes.
The opening scene is almost cringe worthy, where the computer generated imagery, CGI, is so terrible, it’s almost as if

Photo by Jasin Boland
Carla Gugino hurriedly being led to safety by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in ‘San Andreas’.

you’re watching a movie from 2005. The graphics are bad. Very bad.
Thankfully, other than that single scene, most of the CGI throughout the rest of the film is top-notch. It’s almost as if an amateur created the first scene, and then experts took over for the rest.
If you’re looking for a story-driven film with strong character development and plot – this movie is not for you. If you’re looking for an action movie with creative, immense destruction scenes and intense action sequences, then “San Andreas” is worthy of your attention.
“San Andreas” is overflowing with action-packed scenes, offset with try-too-hard character development that disrupts the flow of the movie. This film follows an up and down scale of action, slow, character development that seems forced, and then action again.
The action and great CGI make up for most of its flaws, but not all. There are at least three or four destruction scenes that are just too ridiculous to take seriously, scenes where you know that nobody should have or would have survived that situation in real life.
Furthermore, the movies seemingly forces relationships, which hamper the pacing of the film and ultimately takes away from its strong suit, and what it essentially is. Over and over, the action scenes ramp up the tension, and then this downswing of forced character development throws the movie off balance.
All in all, “San Andreas” moderately makes up for its faults with stupendous CGI, unbelievable action, and incomprehensible destruction on a mammoth level. Would I watch this movie again? Maybe one more time. It’s a movie that you have to see at least once, just to appreciate the level of ruination that it unleashes. I rate San Andreas two doubloons out of five, a movie that warrants at least once watch.