SAN ANDREAS 2015
51%
Directed by Brad Peyton
Written by Carlton Cuse
Starring Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, Alexandra Daddario, Paul Giamatti
Synopsis
A series of devastating earthquakes hits California, and one man from the Los Angeles Fire Department is on a mission to save his family and the survivors of the worst tremors the world has ever seen.
Why We Love It
Big. Dumb. Fun. Every disaster movie—from The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno up to Deep Impact and Volcano and beyond—must possess a few key elements: a hero dad, an expert whose warnings are unheeded, and an ensemble cast of stars giving just enough of a performance to get that fat paycheck. San Andreas hits every mark, but its towering achievement is in its destruction set pieces. The satisfaction you get from watching towering monuments crumble beneath people’s feet is a bit of a sick thrill. Though San Andreas isn’t available to watch in 3-D anymore, the special effects are just as breathtaking on a television.
Viewers have become numb to CG effects—it’s nearly impossible to find a recent movie that doesn’t use them at all. But as San Andreas’ effects supervisor Colin Strause has said, “CG for the sake of CG is always a mistake.” Strause and his team used the film’s $100 million budget to construct and then blow up structures the old-fashioned way, then used the actors’ green-screen footage to insert them in the shot. So many big-budget films appear so artificial that it’s like they’re on another plane of existence, but San Andreas, for as outlandish as it is, exudes a kind of realness and believability that’s all the more thrilling.
And despite working with dialogue that’s at times as basic as it gets—”I’m gonna get you out of there!”—Dwayne Johnson seems especially committed to this role, with real fear and anxiety flashing across his face; Johnson later said the practical effects better helped him envision his character and his emotions.
Strause told Variety the experience was like working on a “big budget indie,” saying that he would sometimes be provided “one little pothole and a couple of bricks,” and the rest was all imagination and ingenuity. Look closer as the world in San Andreas burns, and you might find a few surprises.