So San Andreas is a disaster film. It doesn’t try to be much else and, in it’s lack of ambition, is just a forgettable generic disaster film with laughably generic and cliched dialog (the kind where I was weirdly able to predict the next line a half dozen times).

So, it seems that a previously unknown fault in Nevada (needed so they could destroy Hoover Dam) links up with the San Andreas fault and a 9.5 or 9.6 quake hits first LA, then runs all the way up the coast, and takes on San Francisco. It’s the kind of bastard that takes down the Hollywood Sign AND the Golden Gate Bridge (though, amusingly, the bridge lasts a lot longer than anything else to the point I thought it might make it, just to prove this film at least could defy some cliches).

For a pretty typical disaster film, it has a surprisingly small cast. These flicks usually have a lot of name brand actors telling a half dozen individual stories. But not here. In this we have Dwayne Johnson and Carla Gugino as husband and wife trying to rescue their daughter (and the two random British guys she continuously rescues). Besides them, there’s Paul Giammati in a remarkably small part playing The Scientist Who Warns People roll.

The movie certainly puts its money on the screen with some impressive disaster porn. Buildings crumble or spit in two, explosions, tsunamis, bridges collapse, etc. All the usual stuff you’d expect to see and done very well. If all you want is an FX-driven movie, it certainly delivers.

But it didn’t deliver on particularly good action pacing or drama. The film goes the extra mile to pull good performances out of the cast – all credit to them for trying to work the bad dialog into something better. But it suffers from the usual disaster movie problem of grinding the film to a halt to try to convince us the family problems are more interesting than the deaths of millions and the destruction of billions. It can be done… it just wasn’t done here. I was ultimately kind of bored… but not too bored. Because the movie is watchable, just not too watchable. I will have forgotten this movie existed in a year. It’s just unexceptional.

Anyhow, see it if you like disaster flicks. Don’t see it if you don’t or maybe just want a disaster flick that’s better than average.

Score: 72