SAN ANDREAS (2015) – My rating: 8.5/10

San Andreas is another natural disaster movie for which we can do nothing about. The story revolves around the broken family of a helicopter rescue pilot, a Caltech Seismologist, a reporter, 2 youngsters visiting from England, a real estate developer and most of California and Nevada. Dr. Lawrence Hayes (Paul Giamatti) and his his colleague Dr. Kim Park (Will Yun Lee) have discovered that their research has paid off when they are able to predict earthquakes. Hoover Dam was the first to be hit with a 7.1 earthquake, killing almost everyone in the area and destroying the entire Dam. Because of the quake, Raymond (Dwayne Johnson) was called in to assist in the rescue efforts, preventing him from accompanying his daughter, Blake (Alexandra Daddario) on a trip to San Francisco. Instead she hitched a flight with her wealthy step father to be, Daniel Riddick (Ioan Gruffudd).  Once they arrived in San Francisco, Blake met Ben (Hugo Johnstone-Burt) and his little brother Ollie (Art Parkinson).  Another earthquake hit and they were all caught in the largest recorded earthquake of 9.6 in history .  The special effects were literally out of this world.  The story was better than most of these disaster movies and the acting was excellent with many stars gracing the screen.  Raymond spent his time trying to rescue his family but getting through all the debris and dodging the falling buildings is a whole other story.  San Andreas is non-stop action with the usual destruction and problems one would encounter during such a phenomenon.  Like most of these types of movies, a lot of the escape scenes were unbelievable but necessary to create the wow factor.  Dwayne Johnson’s character is likable, which made the movie likable.  San Andreas is good entertainment.  I saw it in 3D because of all the special effects — I think it was worth the extra charge.