While plans for a sequel continue to linger in development hell,San Andreasgets a glowing retrospective review from the VFX artists at Corridor Crew. The2015 movie starred Dwayne Johnsonas LAFD rescue helicopter pilot Ray Gaines and follows him as he races to get from Los Angeles to San Francisco to rescue his daughter after a massive earthquake on the titular fault line causes devastating destruction all along the California coast. Also starring Carla Gugino and Alexandra Daddario,San Andreassaw mixed reviews from critics, but was a box office success, grossing over $474 million against its $110 million production budget.
Just over nine years after the movie first hit theaters,San Andreasbecame the subject of focus in the latest episode ofCorridor Crew’s “VFX Arists React” series. The group open up by initially remarking how “hilarious” the start of the movie’s tsunami sequence is as various boats race through the San Francisco Bay to climb the wave before it crests. Jordan Allen, in particular, remarks that the sequence is"enteringFast and the Furiousterritory"with the somewhat ridiculous nature of the action, even while remarking how “beautiful” the simulated wakes are as the boats race up the wave.
The episode segment then transitions to show their reaction to the portion of the scene in which the Golden Gate Bridge is destroyed by the tsunami wave, with various cars and people being swept away and the bridge and its suspension cables warping under the pressure from the water. Allen eagerly expresses that his “eyes are eating good” with how detailed the effects are, whileSam Gorski remarks that the scene is “in the CGI hall of fame now"and Wren Weichman praising Scanline VFX as being “the masters of water” simulation. Though generally positive in their reviews, Weichman does point out one overall issue with the film’s tsunami scene. Check out what Weichman and the group said in the quote and video below:
There’s an element of this movie that’s unrealistic, surprise, surprise. The idea of this movie, San Andreas, is that there’s the San Andreas Fault line kind of going north through California here, and it gets the big one. A 9.5-scale earthquake, or whatever the freaking numbers are. It wouldn’t create a tsunami like this at all. So, someone simulated a tsunami hitting San Francisco, and theoretically, the highest tsunami you can possibly get in San Francisco is, like, 16 feet. Nothing about the tsunami in this movie is realistic at all, but the effects are great.
What Corridor Crew’s Analysis Says About San Andreas
TheSan Andreastsunami scene wasn’t the only of the disaster genre that Corridor Crew analyzed in the video above, having also takena look atDeep Impact’s andThe Day After Tomorrow’s. However, while their opinion was consistently positive across all three, even in spite of the decades that have passed since the latter two’s release,their analysis of The Rock’s movie does actually fall in line with how critics felt about the 2015 title. The movie currently holds a 49% approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, with audiences not proving much more positive at a 52% rating.
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The majority ofSan Andreas' criticisms were directed at the implausibility of the movie’s depiction of the devastation caused by the titular fault line, with such scientific organizations as The American Geosciences Institute specifically criticizing the movie for “perpetuat[ing] geologic absurdities”. Beyond the preposterous nature of the disaster and sequences like a boat racing directly up a tsunami wave,the movie’s script was also critiqued for its underwhelming characters and dialogue. That said, even amidst the general mocking,San Andreashas generally been acknowledged for being an entertaining popcorn blockbuster, with critics' sentiments about the movie’s CGI aligning with Corridor Crew’s.
Our Take On Corridor Crew’s San Andreas Comments
Disaster Movies Don’t Need Accuracy To Be Entertaining
San Andreascertainly isn’t the only disaster movie to be lambasted by critics and scientific experts for the depiction of natural disasters. Michael Bay’sArmageddonwas infamously deemed by Neil deGrasse Tyson as the movie that violated the most laws of physics per minute, until it was surpassed byRoland Emmerich’sMoonfall. Emmerich’s prior disaster movies have often been called into question for their science, even if some appreciation was shown forThe Day After Tomorrow’s attempts to raise awareness of climate change.
The Day After Tomorrowrecently became a hit on Netflix, landing the No. 6 spot on the week of September 9-15 and pulling in a total of 11.6 million hours viewed and 5.6 million total views.
But while accuracy can be appreciated in certain genres,San Andreasis a key example of why implausible storytelling can be acceptable, permitted the film as a whole proves entertaining. As a fan of the disaster genre, I truly appreciated just how visceral the 2015 movie was, as well as its mostly successful mix of tongue-in-cheek set pieces with genuinely horrifying action. WhileSan Andreas 2may never happenand build on the entertaining formula of the first, analysis from teams like Corridor Crew shows just how effective the movie remains nearly a decade later.
San Andreas
Cast
Starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as helicopter-rescue pilot Ray Gaines, the 2015 disaster movie San Andreas explores the catastrophic effects of a series of earthquakes caused by a shift in the real-life San Andreas Fault. Set in San Francisco, the film’s cast also includes Carla Gugino as Ray’s ex-wife Emma, Alexandra Daddario as their daughter Blake, Ioan Gruffudd as Emma’s boyfriend Daniel Riddick, and Paul Giamatti as seismologist Dr. Lawrence Hayes.
