DAWN.COM

Today's Paper | April 28, 2024

Published 13 Jun, 2015 07:09am

Movie review: A disaster flick with no ‘direction’

DWAYNE Johnson goes against his biggest enemy ever in San Andreas — a giant earthquake — but fails to impress the audience who were waiting for something out of the ordinary. Everything in the film has been viewed before in cinema and that’s the main reason San Andreas fails to shake up those who went to cinema to get a better version of 2012.

Ray (Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson) is a rescue pilot with the Los Angeles Fire Department and his main job description is to rescue people but instead, he uses the helicopter to save his estranged wife (Carla Gugino), daughter (Alexandra Daddario) and her friends. Seriously, he takes the chopper from Los Angeles to San Francisco just to prove that he is father of all daddies! On one hand, the entire state of California is in trouble with the mother of all earthquakes happening in their part of the world; on the other, Ray is glad to save a handful of people who are related to him or friends with her daughter. Now that’s something new!

Paul Giamatti as the earthquake expert and Archie Panjabi as the reporter are believable but Ioan Gruffud is wasted as the wealthy developer Daniel Riddick. The scenes where The Rock guides people to safety (there are many of those) or where the seismologist warns all about the impending destruction and goes on air are the best in the flick. There is one scene where Carla Gugino jumps from a collapsing building into the chopper her hubby is piloting but one scene doesn’t win the war. Amidst the crumbling buildings, the gigantic tsunami and the shattering roads, there’s nothing to keep you glued to your seat – except Dwayne Johnson’s improved acting.

Only the fans of CGI will love the flick since the movie is made with the state-of-the-art special effects. For a natural disaster flick, San Andreas is not bad but it isn’t amongst the best ones either. Yes it’s one of the few disaster flicks made in 3D but one more look at the script wouldn’t have done any harm for the producers.

Read Comments

Punjab CM Maryam’s uniformed appearance at parade causes a stir Next Story