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San Andreas (IMAX 3D screening)
Hello MoFos! It is time once again for At the Theater with The Gunslinger45. It is well into the summer blockbuster season, and this week we have this year’s installment of the disaster movie. Then again according to the critics (and judging by the ticket stub I found floating in the theater’s urinal) this week’s real disaster movie might be Aloha. But as much as I like Bradley Cooper and Emma Stone, I opted for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Now for those of you who were too young to remember, disaster movies were HUGE In the mid and late 90’s. We had Independence Day, Twister, and not one but two movies dealing with giant meteors AND volcanoes (both of which were released in the same respective years). And since Independence Day, Twister, and Apollo 13 (kinda sorta a disaster movie) were also HUGE hits, the studios started cranking them out like hot cakes and pretty much gave Roland Emmerich a career. And I admit many of them are a bit of a guilty pleasure. They are not really the best of movies, but the good ones are at the very least memorable. But the thing about disaster movies is that a lot of them tend to focus less on the characters, and more on the disaster sequences. This problem can lead to overblown films crammed with a lot of CGI, and characters I don’t give a damn about. Does this week’s movie fit that mold? Well grab a hard hat and watch out for falling debris as we rock the foundation of San Andreas.
We open the film with a standard action scene. A young lady gets caught in an avalanche and her car is knocked off the road and is barely hanging onto a cliff. But we have Chief Gaines of the LA Fire Department to the rescue played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. He steps in, helps save the young lady, and establishes him as the hero of the flick. We then establish Dr Lawrence, played by Paul Giamatti. Lawerence is a seismal… size mall… seize… he is a scientist who studies the Earth and its shifts in the tectonic plates. He works at Cal Tech with his buddy Dr Kim, and they have found a way that can accurately predict where and when earthquakes will happen. And because of plot convince, as soon as they confirm their findings a BIG earthquake hits. And since they are at the Hoover Dam (and this is a disaster movie), it bursts causing the first of the natural disaster sequences. Well Lawrence warns people that these quakes will continue, and no one listens. And since no one listens, the bigger quakes start to hit from LA to San Francisco. And since Chief Gaines daughter is in San Francisco, he has to do whatever it takes to get to his child in order to save her. That is if California crumbling around him does not stop him first.
Now I opted to see this in IMAX 3D, and I will say that the disaster scenes are pretty good. The IMAX 3D magnifies the scope of the effects, amplifies the sounds, and really does add to the movie going experience. The effects are very well done, the scope is huge, and the attention to detail is impressive. But here is the real question. Is it really worth paying the extra money to see it? To which I say not really. Why? Because if you saw half the disaster movies in the 90’s, then you have seen this movie. We have the nerdy scientist who no one listens to when he predicts doom (Independence Day, Volcano, Dante’s Peak, and The Day After Tomorrow), the couple who is on the rocks romantically and is getting divorced but you know they will end up getting back together in the end (Twister), lots of national landmarks getting destroyed (practically Roland Emmerich’s entire filmography), and lots of set hoping from city to city (2012). Hell all this movie needs is a dog miraculously surviving an explosion, a cast of thousands, and an eccentric goofball and this movie practically would be a Roland Emmerich movie. But this movie also has over used tropes from other Hollywood films too. We have a cute kid side character (though to be fair he was very good and adorable), a new romance borne during a disaster (Armageddon, Speed and Tremors), and the male character and rival of our lead which only serves to provide an unneeded love triangle (Twilight, Inuyasha, and various crappy Rom-Coms ). So really this film is just a bunch of recycled scripts put into a blender on puree, and then poured out into this script and slapped together with CGI.
Now as I have said, natural disaster films are a bit of a guilty pleasure. I enjoyed Volcano and Dante’s Peak for what they were, Twister actually got me over an intense childhood fear of tornados, and Independence Day for all of its flaws is not only one of the best experiences I had at the theater, is a film I freely admit is one of my top 100 favorite movies. And I have no issue with the use of CGI. One of my all time favorite films is The Avengers, and that film used CGI A LOT! And I can have fun with movies like Pacific Rim or Godzilla (2014) which are meant to be big screen CGI fun and escapism. But main issue I have with San Andreas is I have seen this all before. There is nothing really new, I do not really care about the characters, and there is nothing really special about the disaster scenes. When Independence Day first came out everyone was shocked by the trailer when the White House was blown up. That was something new. Now national landmarks getting destroyed is a very common thing to see. Seeing entire cities destroyed was done in Independence Day, but they really got generic in movies like 2012, those crappy Transformers movies, and that POS Man of Steel. And I just did not really care that much for the characters. Even a film full of stock characters like Independence Day was able to get me to care about them, but that was in large part due to great performances by several good actors. Jeff Goldblum was dorky and brilliant, Will Smith was in full force with his charisma, Bill Pullman was very good, and Brent Spiner, Harvey Fierstein, Randy Quadd, Adam Baldwin, Robert Loggia, and Vivica A Fox helped to round out a great supporting cast. Outside of The Rock, Giamatti, and the British Kid played by Art Parkinson this film’s cast was pretty dull.
Now the film is nothing new or special, but it is not really a bad movie. The movie is paint by numbers, but at least it knows what it is supposed to be. But at the same time I think most people can skip this movie, especially since Mad Max: Fury Road and Age of Ultron are still in theaters. Both of which are also big budget action movies, but also have characters one can get invested in and bring something unique to the big screen. If you just have to see it go for the full experience in IMAX 3D, otherwise I say you can skip this all together.
San Andreas (IMAX 3D screening)
Hello MoFos! It is time once again for At the Theater with The Gunslinger45. It is well into the summer blockbuster season, and this week we have this year’s installment of the disaster movie. Then again according to the critics (and judging by the ticket stub I found floating in the theater’s urinal) this week’s real disaster movie might be Aloha. But as much as I like Bradley Cooper and Emma Stone, I opted for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Now for those of you who were too young to remember, disaster movies were HUGE In the mid and late 90’s. We had Independence Day, Twister, and not one but two movies dealing with giant meteors AND volcanoes (both of which were released in the same respective years). And since Independence Day, Twister, and Apollo 13 (kinda sorta a disaster movie) were also HUGE hits, the studios started cranking them out like hot cakes and pretty much gave Roland Emmerich a career. And I admit many of them are a bit of a guilty pleasure. They are not really the best of movies, but the good ones are at the very least memorable. But the thing about disaster movies is that a lot of them tend to focus less on the characters, and more on the disaster sequences. This problem can lead to overblown films crammed with a lot of CGI, and characters I don’t give a damn about. Does this week’s movie fit that mold? Well grab a hard hat and watch out for falling debris as we rock the foundation of San Andreas.
We open the film with a standard action scene. A young lady gets caught in an avalanche and her car is knocked off the road and is barely hanging onto a cliff. But we have Chief Gaines of the LA Fire Department to the rescue played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. He steps in, helps save the young lady, and establishes him as the hero of the flick. We then establish Dr Lawrence, played by Paul Giamatti. Lawerence is a seismal… size mall… seize… he is a scientist who studies the Earth and its shifts in the tectonic plates. He works at Cal Tech with his buddy Dr Kim, and they have found a way that can accurately predict where and when earthquakes will happen. And because of plot convince, as soon as they confirm their findings a BIG earthquake hits. And since they are at the Hoover Dam (and this is a disaster movie), it bursts causing the first of the natural disaster sequences. Well Lawrence warns people that these quakes will continue, and no one listens. And since no one listens, the bigger quakes start to hit from LA to San Francisco. And since Chief Gaines daughter is in San Francisco, he has to do whatever it takes to get to his child in order to save her. That is if California crumbling around him does not stop him first.
Now I opted to see this in IMAX 3D, and I will say that the disaster scenes are pretty good. The IMAX 3D magnifies the scope of the effects, amplifies the sounds, and really does add to the movie going experience. The effects are very well done, the scope is huge, and the attention to detail is impressive. But here is the real question. Is it really worth paying the extra money to see it? To which I say not really. Why? Because if you saw half the disaster movies in the 90’s, then you have seen this movie. We have the nerdy scientist who no one listens to when he predicts doom (Independence Day, Volcano, Dante’s Peak, and The Day After Tomorrow), the couple who is on the rocks romantically and is getting divorced but you know they will end up getting back together in the end (Twister), lots of national landmarks getting destroyed (practically Roland Emmerich’s entire filmography), and lots of set hoping from city to city (2012). Hell all this movie needs is a dog miraculously surviving an explosion, a cast of thousands, and an eccentric goofball and this movie practically would be a Roland Emmerich movie. But this movie also has over used tropes from other Hollywood films too. We have a cute kid side character (though to be fair he was very good and adorable), a new romance borne during a disaster (Armageddon, Speed and Tremors), and the male character and rival of our lead which only serves to provide an unneeded love triangle (Twilight, Inuyasha, and various crappy Rom-Coms ). So really this film is just a bunch of recycled scripts put into a blender on puree, and then poured out into this script and slapped together with CGI.
Now as I have said, natural disaster films are a bit of a guilty pleasure. I enjoyed Volcano and Dante’s Peak for what they were, Twister actually got me over an intense childhood fear of tornados, and Independence Day for all of its flaws is not only one of the best experiences I had at the theater, is a film I freely admit is one of my top 100 favorite movies. And I have no issue with the use of CGI. One of my all time favorite films is The Avengers, and that film used CGI A LOT! And I can have fun with movies like Pacific Rim or Godzilla (2014) which are meant to be big screen CGI fun and escapism. But main issue I have with San Andreas is I have seen this all before. There is nothing really new, I do not really care about the characters, and there is nothing really special about the disaster scenes. When Independence Day first came out everyone was shocked by the trailer when the White House was blown up. That was something new. Now national landmarks getting destroyed is a very common thing to see. Seeing entire cities destroyed was done in Independence Day, but they really got generic in movies like 2012, those crappy Transformers movies, and that POS Man of Steel. And I just did not really care that much for the characters. Even a film full of stock characters like Independence Day was able to get me to care about them, but that was in large part due to great performances by several good actors. Jeff Goldblum was dorky and brilliant, Will Smith was in full force with his charisma, Bill Pullman was very good, and Brent Spiner, Harvey Fierstein, Randy Quadd, Adam Baldwin, Robert Loggia, and Vivica A Fox helped to round out a great supporting cast. Outside of The Rock, Giamatti, and the British Kid played by Art Parkinson this film’s cast was pretty dull.
Now the film is nothing new or special, but it is not really a bad movie. The movie is paint by numbers, but at least it knows what it is supposed to be. But at the same time I think most people can skip this movie, especially since Mad Max: Fury Road and Age of Ultron are still in theaters. Both of which are also big budget action movies, but also have characters one can get invested in and bring something unique to the big screen. If you just have to see it go for the full experience in IMAX 3D, otherwise I say you can skip this all together.