San Andreas

 

It’s summertime which means two things – one, it means family vacations to visit iconic American sites like Mount Rushmore, the Empire State Building, and the White House. Two, it means popcorn blockbuster movies in which many of those aforementioned iconic sites get blown to bits by aliens, invading communist forces, or in the case of the solidly cliché but surprisingly fun San Andreas, earthquakes. As long as there have been special effects, movie makers have used them to show skyscrapers, capitol buildings, bridges, dams, and just about any other symbol of civilization you can think of getting demolished in spectacular ways.

 As you might guess, San Andreas takes aim at California and surrounding states. The famous fault line, which is probably the only one any average person knows by name, begins to act up and we get to see Hoover Dam break open like a water balloon, the Hollywood sign tumble like it was made of playing cards, and the Golden Gate bridge get taken out by a tsunami-driven freighter ship. I applaud the special effects team of San Andreas because they created visceral, believable work. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the writers when it comes to plot or character.

Dwayne Johnson plays Ray Gaines, an ex-military helicopter pilot, who now works for Los Angeles search and rescue. We meet him as he flies his team to save a young woman whose car has tumbled into a canyon and is mere centimeters from certain death. Flying along on this incredibly delicate and high risk mission are a tv reporter and her cameraman. She’s wearing high heels and I don’t think either of them are even wearing a seatbelt. So first of all, we know this is a movie that’s going to ignore things like common sense and reality. But when the reporter questions Ray if he really has been part of over 600 successful rescues, Dwayne Johnson turns around in full movie-star mode, aviators perched on his face, brilliant smile emanating, and the California sun flaring in the window behind him and he humbly says, “Just doing my job, ma’am.”

It was at that moment I realized I could just sit back and relax. This movie was going to ask nothing of me at all except a very healthy dose of the suspension of disbelief. Beyond that, all I had to do was enjoy giant buildings collapsing, ridiculously shaped actors running through flames and smoke, and the Rock commandeering every kind of transportation possible to get from Los Angeles to San Francisco so he and his estranged wife can rescue their beautiful, resourceful daughter. Seriously, Ray Gains flies a chopper and a plane, hotwires a truck, and steals a boat. About the only conveyances he doesn’t use are a zeppelin and the Rice-a-roni trolley. And that’s probably just because the trolley is buried in burning rubble and then swamped by a tsunami like everything else in the city.

 What’s interesting about disaster movies, even fun, dumb ones like San Andreas, is that they are a device for dealing with our cultural dread about forces beyond our control, and they often surface at times of political, economic, or international unrest. We know there are things out there that cause catastrophe with no warning. Certain shots of the film recall 911, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing. Disaster movies are a way for us to experience horrible things but still be able to return to our home at the end of the night.  They are also stories we tell ourselves about how we would deal with calamity. At the end of the film, a giant American flag unfurls on the remains of the Golden Gate bridge and Ray Gaines tells us it’s time to rebuild. Stories like San Andreas tell us that even if terrible things happen, we’re still going to be okay. And we will At least until next summer.

This review originally appeared on Q90.1, Delta College quality public radio. Visit www.deltabroadcasting.org for more information.