And Now, The Third One

As often happens, life intrudes and the result is a combination of little free time for blogging plus an exhausted cerebellum.  

So I'm taking advantage of the rare quiet weekend to finally get onto the 'Net the last of the "bad" movies about which I will write.  For now.  

What's the third entertaining-bad movie?  It's 2015's San Andreas.  

I wasn't even aware of this movie until I sat through previews on a couple of recent Netflix DVD rentals.  I checked IMDB and learned this movie already had come and gone.  

Since I hadn't even heard of it I reasoned it didn't do well at the box office.  Not so.  While not a blockbuster it made back its costs about four times over and curiously enough it did a whole lot better internationally than in the good ol' USA.  Maybe foreigners just liked seeing the ugly arrogant Americans get wiped out via a serious of natural disasters.  

I didn't see this flick in the theater (obviously) nor did I watch it on DVD.  Rather I saw it courtesy of our local cable provider who had a free HBO-Cinemax weekend a short while back.  

I was home by myself and noticed this was showing.  So I joined it about 30 minutes in but it didn't take me long to figure out the plot.  

Dewayne ("The Rock") Johnson is a divorced guy with at least one grown daughter.  When I joined this film in progress our hero is flying a single-engine plane over the Bay Area, which was hit by a quake the magnitude of which makes the 1906 and 1989 tremors look like child's play.  With him is his ex (or maybe soon-to-be ex) and they are on the search for their daughter.  Meanwhile we're treated to significant footage of various extras meeting their ultimate fate courtesy of the quake's aftereffects.  

Why do I label this movie as entertainingly bad?  First, it's very predictable.  Seems like everything offered here already has appeared in numerous other disaster flicks.  

Second, none of the characters seem endearing.  You're clearly supposed to be rooting for The Rock (oh, excuse me.. he's to be referred to as Dewayne Johnson, according to my daughter) and his family yet anyone with just a bit of brain power will realize all of these folks live to see the end of the movie.  Why?  They clearly have that indomitable Will To Survive that none of the aforementioned extras seem to possess.  However the main characters appear so vapid I wouldn't want to invite any of them to my backyard barbecue.  

Third, the overuse of CGI.  I realize the technology is here to stay yet to quote Lisa Simpson:  "Better effects don't make for better storytelling."  

Since I was alone at the time of my viewing I decided to start making Mystery Science Theater 3000-esque comments to the screen.  I'm not sure if my solitude impaired some of my snark or added to it.  Either way I laughed out loud at some of my off-the-cuff remarks.  

As with any of these movies, feel free to watch them yourself and draw your own conclusions.  

I also saw, in preparation for today's piece, a notation in IMDB.com which shows a project titled "San Andreas 2."  

Oh, Lord......