San Andreas

This review may contain spoilers!

This isn't anything special, just another generic disaster movie. I would give San Andreas a 6.5/10.

This film was a special effect's bonanza; with some awe-inspiring moments of decimation created in post-production. The cinematography of the film really complimented this, with some powerful shots as the disaster played out. The musical score that accompanied the film was jaw dropping and Sia's single at the end of the film was just the perfect round up of music.

Dwayne Johnson, who played Ray, was a fairly solid lead in this film; while at times he strayed into the stereotypical I found that he put a lot of effort into fleshing out a powerful character and subplot. Alexandra Daddario, who played Blake, is a true up and coming actress; she really lead an entire plotline of the film and made her character display a diverse emotional range. Ioan Gruffudd, who played Daniel Riddick, was perfect as the jerk character; he balanced his role with a charming exterior that gave way to a feral and selfish portrayal. Art Parkinson, who played Ollie, is really a great child actor; he's very comedic in his performance but also brings everything he has to some of the more emotionally demanding scenes.

However the best performance of the film came from Paul Giamatti, who played lawrence. Giamattie thrived with a role that was quite fun and amusing to watch at first; he had a lot of energy and as an audience member you could feel that. With the death of a character close to Lawrence, Giamatti evolved the role displaying grief but also a rock steady determination to act as a very heroic figure. In many ways Giamatti's arc was more entertaining than other plot arcs within this film.

This film dragged a lot longer than it needed to; inciting too many plot arcs and subplots to stretch out the length of the film. The storyline was also pretty unappealing, dealing with a seperated family who are pulled together by this disaster. At this point a storyline like that does little more than play into stereotype for this genre. The writer's could have done a lot better with this film.

Carla Gugino, who played Emma, felt a bit all over the place in this film; at some instances we see her as grieving mother but then we get her as a badass and then again as nursing Johnson's man pain. Hugo Johnstone-Burt, who played Ben, gave a very exaggerated performance; he also severely lacked chemistry with Daddario and Parkinson.