If the Internet has taught us anything it's that there are kinds of pornography to scratch the itch of whatever way-out-of-left-field fetish you could possibly dream up. Stolen private photos of famous people? Duh. People dressed like mascots? OK, sure. Girls farting on cake? Wait, why? Drawings of dragons having sex with cars? Of course that probably-not-safe-for-work clicking exists for some reason too.
But the real question is who is big-budget disaster porn for? Whose lust for countless civilian casualties — for seeing crowds crushed under bits of crumbling buildings and flung from collapsing bridges — does San Andreas seek to satiate? (Obviously we don’t see humans splattered on sidewalks or any real sign of the loss of life in San Andreas — that would be tacky.)
It seems San Andreas and its ilk are to Maxim as Faces of Death is to Penthouse. Maybe it’s just not my thing: fantasizing about the annihilation of the West Coast. I mean, I have mixed feelings about LA, sure, but San Francisco seems nice enough.
For those in it for the eye candy (i.e, the CG disaster-scapes, not the Rock, Carla Gugino, or True Detective’s Alexandra Daddario) the whole spectacle of skyscrapers disintegrating like sand castles goes from mildly impressive to yawn-inducing by the time quake number two shakes up the Golden State. Then there’s the ugly final stretch, which seems to be at least 90 percent obvious green screen.
An impressive cast on paper can't save San Andreas from the disaster on the paper of its script. Even the excellent Paul Giamatti, who takes on the scientist trying to warn the world role, gets the wrong kind of laughs when a student — having just realized an earthquake is about to rock the West Coast — asks, “Who should we call?” Dramatic pause as the camera cuts to Giamatti’s face as he utters a grizzly, sober word: “Everybody.”
San Andreas comes from a screenplay by Lost co-showrunner Carlton Cuse and the director of such sequels you’ve never seen such as Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore and Journey to the Center of the Earth 2: The Mysterious Island, Brad Peyton — who makes sure each and every cast member gets their own turn in front of the camera doing the mouth-agape-staring-stunned-at-the-CG-carnage-off-screen bit.
People have different things they’re into, and that’s fine — though, to summarize something I recall Dr. Drew saying on Loveline back in the day, just because you can find other people who like something you do doesn’t by itself necessarily mean what you like is healthy or “normal” — but I haven’t laughed as hard in a theater this year than when the crowd at my screening erupted into applause following the almost so-bad-it’s-funny ending of San Andreas. To each his or her own, I guess.
Since watching San Andreas won’t exactly leave you pondering what it is to be human, maybe we should figure out what these Roland Emmerich-esque disasters say about us. Maybe the more important question is: If one hundred buildings fall in California and no one sees it, will disaster porn flicks like San Andreas stop getting made?
—Eric Pulsifer
But the real question is who is big-budget disaster porn for? Whose lust for countless civilian casualties — for seeing crowds crushed under bits of crumbling buildings and flung from collapsing bridges — does San Andreas seek to satiate? (Obviously we don’t see humans splattered on sidewalks or any real sign of the loss of life in San Andreas — that would be tacky.)
It seems San Andreas and its ilk are to Maxim as Faces of Death is to Penthouse. Maybe it’s just not my thing: fantasizing about the annihilation of the West Coast. I mean, I have mixed feelings about LA, sure, but San Francisco seems nice enough.
For those in it for the eye candy (i.e, the CG disaster-scapes, not the Rock, Carla Gugino, or True Detective’s Alexandra Daddario) the whole spectacle of skyscrapers disintegrating like sand castles goes from mildly impressive to yawn-inducing by the time quake number two shakes up the Golden State. Then there’s the ugly final stretch, which seems to be at least 90 percent obvious green screen.
An impressive cast on paper can't save San Andreas from the disaster on the paper of its script. Even the excellent Paul Giamatti, who takes on the scientist trying to warn the world role, gets the wrong kind of laughs when a student — having just realized an earthquake is about to rock the West Coast — asks, “Who should we call?” Dramatic pause as the camera cuts to Giamatti’s face as he utters a grizzly, sober word: “Everybody.”
San Andreas comes from a screenplay by Lost co-showrunner Carlton Cuse and the director of such sequels you’ve never seen such as Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore and Journey to the Center of the Earth 2: The Mysterious Island, Brad Peyton — who makes sure each and every cast member gets their own turn in front of the camera doing the mouth-agape-staring-stunned-at-the-CG-carnage-off-screen bit.
People have different things they’re into, and that’s fine — though, to summarize something I recall Dr. Drew saying on Loveline back in the day, just because you can find other people who like something you do doesn’t by itself necessarily mean what you like is healthy or “normal” — but I haven’t laughed as hard in a theater this year than when the crowd at my screening erupted into applause following the almost so-bad-it’s-funny ending of San Andreas. To each his or her own, I guess.
Since watching San Andreas won’t exactly leave you pondering what it is to be human, maybe we should figure out what these Roland Emmerich-esque disasters say about us. Maybe the more important question is: If one hundred buildings fall in California and no one sees it, will disaster porn flicks like San Andreas stop getting made?
—Eric Pulsifer
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