![Carla Gugino and Dwayne Johnson in \"San Andreas\" (Warner Bros. Pictures\/Jasin Boland)](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/234\/2015\/05\/SanAndreas.jpg\")
<\/a>Ray (Dwayne Johnson) is a Los Angeles firefighter who heads a team of helicopter rescuers. Not long after saving a girl whose car is resting on a canyon cliff, the world seems about to end: San Andreas, Calif.\u2019s main north-south earthquake fault line is triggered by a series of quakes around Hoover Dam in Nevada.<\/p>\n
But Ray\u2019s world is already fragile because of a pending divorce from his wife, Emma (Carla Gugino), and the earlier death of one of his two daughters. Emma introduces him to her new boyfriend, Daniel (Ioan Gruffudd) and announces that they are moving in together. Adding insult to injury, Daniel offers to give a ride to Ray and Emma\u2019s college-bound other daughter, Blake (Alexandra Daddario), in his private jet. They soon depart for San Francisco.<\/p>\n
When the first quake hits, Emma contacts Ray, who manages to fly through some of Los Angeles\u2019 tallest buildings to rescue his estranged wife from a rooftop. Then Blake calls frantically from Daniel\u2019s car in an underground garage. A quake has hit San Francisco, too. Debris has pinned her in the back seat and Daniel goes for help, only to keep running. Ray and Emma turn the helicopter toward San Francisco to save her. They end up taking every means of transportation possible \u2014 except a train \u2014 to find her.<\/p>\n
A young engineer, Ben (Hugo Johnstone-Burt), and his little brother, Ollie (Art Parkinson), help Blake escape, and together, they must find their way out of unimaginable devastation as the quakes keep on coming, followed by even more disasters.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, at Caltech in Pasadena, seismologist Lawrence (Paul Giamatti) and his team have figured out a way to predict earthquakes \u2014 proven, unfortunately, when the Nevada quake hits. Now, with a TV crew headed by Serena (Archie Panjabi) and her team taping everything Lawrence says, the scientists try to get word out to save as many people as possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cSan Andreas\u201d is a very intense imagining of what only a series of 9.0 earthquakes and above would wreak on California. The story of Ray and his family as well as the scientific information humanize the consequences of nature\u2019s fury and make the action more palatable. But the story is very thin and more like a delivery system for a message \u2014 albeit an important one. Blake, who is obviously her father\u2019s daughter, demonstrates this: As she leads the two brothers from one safety point to another, she teaches communication and survival techniques to the audience.<\/p>\n
\u201cSan Andreas\u201d is not for the weak-kneed or faint of heart. Adrenaline junkies may like it, and fans of Johnson will be glad to see that though his acting skills make his character credible, they are probably overshadowed by his physical prowess. It seems that these actors did most of their own stunts and, if so, they deserve a huge bonus. If not, then the editors and special effects people do. Gugino and Daddario were very good.<\/p>\n
\u201cSan Andreas\u201d is loud and filled with relentless action and devastation. It is not a good advertisement for California, but just as my religious community is not going to leave because \u201cthe big one\u201d is coming, local audiences probably won\u2019t either, and people will keep moving here. At the premiere, they gave us \u201cpreparedness bags.\u201d At least if the big one does hit, we can\u2019t say nobody warned us.<\/p>\n
Leaving aside the constructed nature of the narrative, \u201cSan Andreas\u201d does draw attention to the power of the earth and asks us to have the humility to respect nature. Although not mentioned in the film, I kept thinking about all the earthquakes in Oklahoma, quakes that did not happen before large-scale fracking began not long ago. (The process pushes water mixed with toxic chemicals at high power into the earth to force out natural gas.) The earth\u2019s crust is fragile and formidable. It is interconnected, and people\u2019s lives are at stake. I think it would be a very good idea to take the film\u2019s message of respecting nature seriously and to rethink fracking and other practices that put the future of the earth and its people at unnecessary risk.<\/p>\n