Review: Dwayne comes to the rescue, but he forgot the script
May 27, 2015, 1:00 PM
(Jasin Boland/Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)
It’s sure been a rough year for Hollywood. First there was the stinging Sony hacking scandal. And now we have the humbling image of the Hollywood letters themselves toppling to the ground, as most of California is pulverized by an earthquake — make that earthquakes, plural — in “San Andreas.”
If those letters toppling sounds like a pretty obvious image, well, duh. Everything in “San Andreas,” which stars Dwayne Johnson and his amazing musculature as a powerful-yet-sweet rescue pilot, is obvious, over-the-top, and occasionally laugh-out-loud cheesy.
But really, you weren’t expecting Ingmar Bergman, were you? Summer’s upon us, and you could do worse than watch the undeniably appealing Johnson try to save the day while uttering the silliest dialogue imaginable. Plus, if you live far from the West Coast, there’s the juicy schadenfreude factor — though we can count on the inevitable sequel (“San Andreas 2: Eastward,” perhaps?) to fix that.
The movie, directed by Brad Peyton, declares itself proudly from the start. We begin as a winsome blonde lass drives her car off the road and finds herself dangling on a cliff.
Ray Gaines of the LAFD to the rescue. With an easy, calm smile, Ray (Johnson) finds a way to total his helicopter yet scoop the lass to freedom.
But we soon learn that there was one major failed rescue in Ray’s life that haunts him every day. In fact, it destroyed his marriage to Emma (Carla Gugino), who, as we meet her, is about to move in with her new fianc
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