I allowed myself two hours of alone time today before the big sleepover (3+2 more kids = damn!) and spent the time with Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson–at least on screen. I watched San Andreas and boy was it a good time. Though imperfect, the film had all the qualities of an action-first summer blockbuster with enough resonant story that the characters seem worth following.
The key points of a summer blockbuster tend to be action and name recognition driven. This has the Rock and Carla Gugino, but it also has appearances from a slew of known secondary actors. Paul Giamatti even plays a major role. It feels like they crammed every actor they knew into the film just to say, ‘earthquake!’
The storyline is simplistic: Dad loses wife and daughter, wife and daughter need him at a crucial time. Dad is there fir them. However, the narrative is really focused on the beautiful people and cinematography more than any deeper connections between characters. (Did I mention they cast Kylie Minogue in what could’ve been a memorable role but turned throwaway quickly)
Overall, I was looking for characters to get behind and great scenery on which to do so. This film had all of it.