Film review: San Andreas - formulaic fare as Dwayne Johnson braves earthquakes

Unlike other disaster movies, which tend to focus on one calamitous incident at a time, San Andreas offers a triple whammy: three earthquakes, including one that is the largest in recorded history. There are aftershocks big enough to topple structures that are barely holding on after the main event. Then a tsunami sweeps away whatever is left.

San Andreas is not just about a disaster. It is about epic devastation. As implied by the name, the action takes place along the San Andreas Fault, an 1,300km fault line that cuts through California. Seismologists predict that a catastrophic earthquake along it can happen any time, with dire implications for anyone on its route, bisecting major cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco.

But despite the staggeringly realistic special effects, San Andreas is still a generic and predictable disaster movie — beefy hero, spunky heroines, brainy earthquake expert and a rich, shallow coward who gets his comeuppance.

Dwayne Johnson is Ray Gaines, a Los Angeles Fire Department search and rescue helicopter pilot on whose broad shoulders falls the task of saving his estranged wife Emma (Carla Gugino), and then flying across the state to do the same for their daughter Blake (Alexandra Daddario).