San Andreas

For F*** Magazine

SAN ANDREAS

Director : Brad Peyton

Cast : Dwayne Johnson, Alexandra Daddario, Carla Gugino, Paul Giamatti, Ioan Gruffudd, Colton Haynes, Archie Panjabi, Hugo Johnstone-Burt, Todd Williams, Art Parkinson, Kylie Minogue, Will Yun Lee

Genre : Adventure/Thriller

Run Time : 114 mins

Opens : 28 May 2015

“We all have our little faults,” Lex Luthor told Superman in the 1978 film. “Mine’s in California.” In this disaster thriller, that “little fault” leads to big problems as the entire US west coast is crippled by a devastating earthquake of unprecedented magnitude. Los Angeles Fire Department rescue pilot Ray Gaines (Johnson) has to save his estranged wife Emma (Gugino) and the couple have to put aside their differences in order to reach their daughter Blake (Daddario). Blake is trapped in San Francisco alongside Ben (Johnstone-Burt) and his kid brother Ollie (Parkinson), Ben interviewing for a position at the office of superstar architect Daniel Riddick (Gruffudd), Emma’s new boyfriend. Meanwhile, CalTech seismology professor Lawrence Hayes (Giamatti) has been working on a system to predict earthquakes and is determined to get the word out so as many lives can be saved before the destruction escalates.

            Let’s address the elephant in the room: Nepal has recently been hit by two major quakes, the death toll now exceeding 8500. The marketing for San Andreas has been tweaked with an emphasis on earthquake preparedness and donating to the relief effort, with a portion of the movie’s takings set to be donated to Nepal. Still, it’s understandable that very few audiences, if any, will find harrowing devastation in this specific context very entertaining. It’s a little like when the kids-on-a-space-shuttle adventure Space Camp was released two months after the Challenger disaster. In fact, it leads one to wonder if a movie like San Andreas was ever a good idea, even before the Nepal tremblor, given the tragic frequency with which such calamities occur these days.

Big summer blockbusters are meant to provide escapism rather than continually remind viewers of the problems that plague the world in real life. Post-9/11, many action flicks have deliberately invoked the imagery of collapsing buildings and citizens scrambling away from falling debris in the hopes of eliciting an emotional response through mere association with actual tragedies, which seems to be the case here too. The Catch-22 faced by director Brad Peyton is that if the events depicted in the film are too fanciful and ridiculous, it will pull audiences out of it, but if they are too realistic, it will hit too close to home.

            The phrase “destruction porn” has been tossed about derisively in reference to blockbusters like Man of Steel and just about everything in Roland Emmerich’s filmography. Let’s call a spade a spade – San Andreas is destruction porn. We don’t mean this sanctimoniously; wanton carnage has always been one of the main ingredients in creating large-scale spectacle. It’s worth acknowledging the effort made to craft inventive, thrilling sequences and the amount of work involved in creating the digital deluge must have been mind-boggling. All credit to the armies of artists at visual effects houses Scanline, hy*drau”lx, Method Studios, Cinesite and other vendors for their work here. The scale is suitably epic but one can’t help but have the niggling sense of hollow artificiality throughout. Moviegoers have become harder to impress and even with rippling seismic waves tearing through the L.A. city centre and cargo ships lodged in skyscrapers, San Andreas is rarely truly impressive. The 3D conversion is also something of a let-down.

            When it comes to the plot, San Andreas is predictable to, well, a fault. The involvement of at least six screenwriters performing multiple studio-mandated rewrites ensures that the script is safe, homogenised and dull. Paul Giamatti, playing a seismology professor as if the character were a scientist from a ‘50s creature feature, warns “it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.” We also counted at least nine utterances of the line “oh my god!” (mostly from Carla Gugino). Every disaster movie cliché in the book is flung into San Andreas, as well as clichés from other genres for good measure. You’ve got the strong, hardworking protagonist, his estranged wife, the wealthy douchebag who is his wife’s new boyfriend, the daughter who needs to be rescued but who is largely plucky and capable when required, the daughter’s earnest, handsome love interest and the tagalong kid for comic relief. Oh, and the protagonist has already lost one child in an earlier rafting accident. This doesn’t feel like it needed six writers, it feels like all it took was an algorithm fed into some kind of automated writing software.

            Dwayne Johnson reunites with Peyton, who directed him in Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. The wrestler-turned-action-hero can do the noble, heroic thing in his sleep by now. Carla Gugino spends most of the movie yelling. Alexandra Daddario is the “damsel in a degree of distress”, competent but still in need of dad coming to the rescue. It’s all just tired and cheesy. Hollywood, it’s time to rewrite the disaster movie formula, and no amount of tsunamis smacking shipping crates into the Golden Gate Bridge can distract us from that dire need.

Summary: San Andreas manages to out-‘90s most ‘90s disaster flicks, unintentionally funny in how dated and corny despite several well-crafted set pieces.

RATING: 2 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters

For F*** Magazine

PERCY JACKSON: SEA OF MONSTERS

Director: Thor Freudenthal
Cast: Logan Lerman, Brandon T. Jackson, Alexandra Daddario, Jake Abel, Melina Kanakaredes, Brandon T. Jackson, Douglas Smith, Missi Pyle, Yvette Nicole Brown, Mary Birdsong, Nathan Fillion, Stanley Tucci, Anthony Head, Leven Rambin
Genre: Action, Fantasy
Run Time: 106 mins
Opens: 29 August 2013
Rating: PG (Some Violence And Frightening Scenes)

2010’s Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief was generally written off as a big studio attempt to come out with a franchise to replace Harry Potter, which was nearing its end at the time. However, it did do well enough to warrant a follow-up, based on Rick Riordan’s second Percy Jackson novel, The Sea of Monsters. So, does this seafaring sequel stay afloat or leave the series dead in the water?

The film begins with a prologue depicting the origins of the protective shield around Camp Half-Blood, safe haven for demigods-in-training. When a familiar foe attacks, weakening the barrier and threatening the safety of the camp, Percy Jackson (Lerman), son of Poseidon, sets out to retrieve the fabled Golden Fleece, which will help heal the magical tree that is the source of the force-field. He is accompanied by Annabeth (Daddario), satyr friend Grover (Jackson) and his newfound Cyclopean half-brother Tyson (Smith). Together, they have to traverse the treacherous body of water of the title, more commonly known as the Bermuda Triangle. Percy’s competitive rival Clarisse (Rambin), the daughter of Ares, has also set out in search of the Fleece and must eventually team up with those she has scoffed.



The first film was an entertaining if rather derivative teenage-aimed fantasy-action flick that put several clever spins on Greek mythology, creatively integrating elements like the Lotus-eaters and the multi-headed hydra into a modern-day context. In that regard, this film is very similar, albeit a tad more lighthearted than its predecessor. It’s good to see a young adult novel adaptation that doesn’t take itself so seriously, considering how ridiculously po-faced a lot of them have gotten. It’s paced pretty well, has a straightforward “go get the macguffin!” plot (with the Golden Fleece in place of Zeus’ master lightning bolt) and has enough interesting visuals to hold the attention. For example, there’s a stunning, stylish stained-glass-style animated sequence which brings to mind the “Golden Army” animated prologue from Hellboy II.

Taking over the reins from Harry Potter alum Chris Columbus is Thor Freudenthal, director of Hotel for Dogs and the first Diary of a Wimpy Kid film, whose background is in conceptual and storyboard art. It’s a good thing that, given his résumé, the film doesn’t overly pander to the younger set and still packs decent amounts of excitement for the older kids and parents in the audience. The action set-pieces are not quite as strong as those in the first film, capped off with a slightly anti-climactic denouement set in an abandoned theme park. However, there still are some pretty cool moments, including an attack on the camp by the fire-breathing mechanical Colchis bull that looks like something out of Transformers: Beast Wars, as well as the appearance of the iridescent Hippocampus, a literal “sea horse” that is summoned so Percy and company can hitch a ride.



The central trio of Lerman, Daddario and Jackson appear comfortable stepping back into their roles, Lerman now able to play Percy as a slightly more experienced hero and leader. Newcomer Smith is endearing as the awkward, oafish but good-natured Tyson, who is met with initial hostility from Annabeth. Naturally, we are presented with the moral of learning to look past one’s appearances but hey, better than no character development at all. Rambin has fun with the part of the determined and confrontational warrior – the moral with Clarisse is, of course, the value of humility and trusting in the abilities of others. Thankfully, we don’t get beaten over the head with this. Abel does more unconvincing angsting and flat-line delivery as Luke, but doesn’t get a whole lot of screen time.

This film has to make do without the illustrious supporting cast of the first, the likes of Sean Bean, Uma Thurman, Rosario Dawson, Steve Coogan and Pierce Brosnan (he’s replaced by Anthony Stewart Head) all absent. That’s not to say it suffers overly for this, though: Stanley Tucci is funny as Dionysus, the god of wine, ecstasy and assorted hedonism-turned stir-crazy camp director and christened “Mr. D”. Nathan Fillion also pretty much steals the show in his one-scene cameo as Hermes, functioning as a Q-type character who dispenses a couple of nifty gadgets to Percy and friends. Being the fan-favourite herald of geekiness he is, Fillion gets to do a wink and a nod to the television shows he’s best known for, Firefly and Castle. Also worth a mention are Missi Pyle, Yvette Nicole Brown and Mary Birdsong as the Graeae; the bickering crones re-imagined as taxi drivers.




The film aspires to be nothing more than a fun, entertaining family adventure flick – and that, it is. We’ve seen these character types and story arcs before and yes, it's been scaled back a bit from Lightning Thief, but the decent visual effects work and ADI’s make-up and animatronic effects make this a lively ride. The novelty of a world in which the tales of Greek myth are all true and lurk beneath the surface of our contemporary existence is put to amusing use, and a third film certainly wouldn’t be something we’d be vehemently against.

SUMMARY: A generally enjoyable adventure that, in spite of several well-worn elements, has enough vim and verve to keep audiences, kids in particular, interested. Also, the 3D’s not half bad!

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 STARS

Jedd Jong