San Andreas 2015

Christy Lemire, ChristyLemire.com: It's like Planes, Trains & Automobiles, only with a catastrophic body count. Read more

Wesley Morris, Grantland: The earth of San Andreas cleaves itself open to us like the devil's sunroof. Who are we not to leap into the void? Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: The special effects aren't bad for a lower-budget ($100 million) blockbuster, though director Brad Peyton and his writers often deploy them in downright laughable ways. Read more

Andrew Barker, Variety: California crumbles spectacularly in an action movie that quickly degenerates from blissfully stupid to fatally stupid. Read more

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, AV Club: It's hard to appreciate San Andreas as much more than a series of special effects vistas: impeccably detailed, completely plastic. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Hahahaha. Really, that's about all there is to say about "San Andreas" ... Read more

Tom Russo, Boston Globe: For all the unabashed cliches and straight-faced silliness delivered by Johnson, Paul Giamatti, and their generally capable castmates, they're doing something right. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: My resistance to summer blockbusters crumbled like a collapsing skyscraper in the face of this big, loud, exuberantly destructive movie. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: I enjoyed large chunks of San Andreas, largely because the actors give it a full load of sincerity, and there's some bizarrely effective comic relief thanks to Hugo Johnstone-Burt and Art Parkinson as Brits who picked the wrong week to visit the Bay Area. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: The CGI effects in this film, directed by Brad Peyton, are quite remarkable and help take one's mind off the cornball disaster-brings-families-together underpinnings. Read more

Adam Graham, Detroit News: "San Andreas" never pretends to be any less subtle than the Rock's physique. It's a hulking mass of wanton destruction, and a stupid-fun carnival of carnage. Read more

Cary Darling, Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com: When the earth is roiling and rippling like an angry ocean, it's an impressive sight. It's when the shaking stops though that San Andreas is a different type of disaster. Read more

Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly: As patently preposterous, scientifically dubious, and unapologetically corny as director Brad Peyton's orgy of CGI devastation is, its popcorn prophecy of the inevitable is a blast of giddy, disposable fun. Read more

Justin Lowe, Hollywood Reporter: Together with cinematographer Steve Yedlin and VFX supervisor Colin Strause, director Brad Peyton achieves a persuasive blending of practical shots and superior CG techniques for the most complex sequences. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: An action hero with a rare kind of gravitas, Johnson has a stabilizing influence on all the silliness that surrounds him. Read more

Amy Nicholson, L.A. Weekly: It's all big, distant, unfathomable wreckage - shattering skyscrapers and rippling cityscapes - with no sense of the human cost Read more

Randy Myers, San Jose Mercury News: As for the story line, there are faults and cracks aplenty. But "San Andreas" does know where its epicenter must be: overdone, loud, anything-but-realistic and enthusiastic destruction sequences. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: In San Andreas, The Big One finally hits California, and not even Dwayne Johnson's mutant biceps can keep those infamous tectonic plates from separating. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: Top-notch effects and a bottom-scraping script make this disaster flick a spectacular bore. Read more

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: The allure of San Andreas rests entirely on the calibre of its pandemonium, savored, ideally, with a brawling audience on a Friday night. Read more

Jocelyn Noveck, Associated Press: Summer's upon us, and you could do worse than watch the undeniably appealing Johnson try to save the day while uttering the silliest dialogue imaginable. Read more

Chris Klimek, NPR: Helo-flown and hella-dumb, the movie delivers what its ads promise and not a particle more: Semi-convincing digital erasure of infrastructure. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: "San Andreas" is a disaster - literally. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: It's hard not to shrug, stifle a yawn and reach for the popcorn when the Golden Gate Bridge once again buckles and sways and drops vehicles into the bay. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Quite literally the blockbuster of the year. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Paul Giamatti is perfectly cast as the rumpled scientist and his scenes are by far the most interesting. It causes one to wonder if San Andreas might have worked better if the entire film had focused on his character. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Hell, I'm as up as the next guy for a dumb summer epic with special effects that fire up audiences. But did San Andreas have to be such a monument to stupidity? Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: Considered as pure spectacle, "San Andreas" is gripping and effective, as well as a somewhat interesting form of counter-narrative: A vision of near-term apocalypse that has nothing to do with climate change, monsters or alien invaders. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: The movie nicely delivers the computer-generated goods - the destruction of the Golden Gate Bridge is pretty spectacular - and if Johnson doesn't quite make it sing, at least it growls suspensefully. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Some movies are easy to mock, but hard to resist. This is one of them. Read more

Kevin C. Johnson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "San Andreas" is an action film that hits viewers over the head. Again and again. But isn't that exactly why you'd want to go see it? Read more

Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic: It's enormously entertaining, thanks to the undeniable charisma of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and the wanton CGI destruction of all of the West Coast's greatest landmarks (in 3-D, no less). Read more

Julia Cooper, Globe and Mail: San Andreas lacks backbone. Between its steroidic CGI and emotionally vacant plot line, the movie is all flex, no muscle. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: When you think about it, is there anybody else you'd want looking out for you in times of trouble than Johnson? Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: Thankfully, the action set pieces are exciting enough, and come at such a successive clip - "Oh, s-t" may be the film's most repeated line of dialogue - that it's only afterward that you have the chance to pause and ask questions about the plot. Read more

David Ehrlich, Time Out: Campy but never campy enough and far too numbingly artificial to ever drum up any real suspense or sense of awe, the film has a scale that's squandered on visual witlessness. Read more

Bruce Kirkland, Toronto Sun: San Andreas does exactly what it set out to do: Satisfy the thrill-seekers with a popcorn movie. If you want something more serious about earthquakes, you have to watch the nightly news. Read more

Brian Truitt, USA Today: The cringeworthy dialogue and unmoving earnestness are the biggest disasters in this mostly forgettable action flick Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: There are things in San Andreas that no one would have dreamed of seeing 40 years ago, when Earthquake (with its tacky, plaster-cracking "Sensurround") represented the state of the art. But nothing means anything. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: The dialogue is inappropriately jocular throughout, which undercuts the genuine terror it attempts to muster. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: "San Andreas" changes all too quickly from satisfyingly foolish to dismayingly dumb to genuinely stupid. Read more