Ray and Emma have a few quiet moments together, though they’re largely wasted dealing with the recriminations of a needless backstory. Thanks to this lack of tension - when two major world cities lie in ruins, it’s hard to get too worked up over the danger of the rubble re-collapsing - the film drifts off in its last hour. Instead, the film simply doubles down on its initial gambit, as Giamatti’s scientist discovers that the biggest, most devastating quake in American history is merely a precursor for a bigger, more most-devastating quake that could turn California into Arizona Bay at any moment. With the earthquake having passed, it’s here that the film ought to stir up some novel perils to test and develop its characters, and the aftermath of an earthquake should provide plenty of dangers - gas leaks, explosions, fires, riots, slightly worse traffic, etc. (For all the screenplay’s attempts to make Blake the resourceful survivalist of her little band, she’s still invariably the one getting saved.) After learning that Blake is temporarily safe, Ray and Emma resolve to head up to San Francisco to rescue her themselves. Ray plucks Emma from the top of a crumbling building in his chopper, while Ben and Ollie pull Blake from a crumbling parking garage. (Shot partially in Australia, the film carves out a strange cameo role here for Aussie pop star Kylie Minogue: After “Holy Motors,” “San Andreas” is Minogue’s second consecutive film in which she appears for a single scene, then promptly falls off a roof.) It’s the little details that are more memorable, such as the unaware, airborne Ray glancing down to see a freeway interchange silently crumble, or a long tracking shot through a luxury rooftop lounge as Emma pushes past frantic waitresses and flaming kitchen staff in search of safety. and San Francisco simultaneously - Peyton shows us both the computer-scaled chaos (well rendered, if indistinguishable from the similar destruction present in every disaster pic and comicbook film of the past half-decade) as well as some glimpses at more immediate epicenters. As the assembled characters dodge debris and do lots of screaming - the quake demolishes L.A. Well aware that it isn’t the science that’s bringing butts into the seats, director Peyton makes the most of this first cataclysm. He’s just arrived back in Pasadena to put his theories into practice when the entire San Andreas fault lights up with warning signs, indicating the Big One is imminent. Meanwhile, a Cal Tech seismologist (Paul Giamatti), prone to muttering science-y gibberish under his breath while drawing lots of diagrams, heads off to Nevada to study a recent flurry of “mini-quakes.” These jolts give him the data he needs to predict future earthquakes - “something-something magnetic pulses mumble-mumble” - moments before a sudden trembler takes out the Hoover Dam.
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Ray and Emma have a college-aged daughter named Blake (Alexandra Daddario), who thumbs a ride up to the Bay Area on Daniel’s private jet, where she meets cute with fumbling, flustering British twentysomething Ben (Hugo Johnstone-Burt) and his obnoxious, wisecracking younger brother, Ollie (Art Parkinson). His soon-to-be-ex-wife, Emma (Carla Gugino), has shacked up with uber-rich building developer Daniel (Ioan Gruffudd), who is busy constructing the tallest, sturdiest skyscraper in San Francisco (this bit of information may be useful later).
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Ray (Johnson) is a hulking, heroic helicopter pilot who segued from flying missions in Afghanistan to performing search-and-rescue operations in Los Angeles.
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In any case, the five or six characters whose lives matter are as follows.