San Andreas Quake (2015) Directed by John Baumgartner
Yep, this is a disaster movie alright. Get it? Ha!
Oh, how I love watching these bad, silly, terrible, cheap knockoffs done by The Asylum. No, of course "San Andreas Quake" isn't a good movie and I can't even call if a fun or very entertaining one but there is always something very fascinating about watching a quickly made, cheap and poorly done movie, that has absolutely nothing original- or even remotely decent to offer.
It's obvious this movie was quickly made to cash in on the success of "San Andreas" and to fool people into thinking that both are the same movie. A tactic often used by The Asylum and it's probably the only reason why they are still around and are able to make tons of movies each year, fore the quality of their movies absolutely never, in no way, justifies the company's existence and 'populairity'.
All disaster flicks are of course more or less the same and they often follow the same patterns and feature the same sort of clichés in them. This movie is no different in that regard but what is worse is that the movie isn't even trying to be somewhat surprising with its story or characters. All characters basically are such big stereotypes that you already know in advance what's going to happen to them in the story. As a matter of fact, despite featuring many of the usual disaster movie clichés, it's a movie that never really manages to feel like a true disaster flick as well.
As you would have guessed already, this movie features a whole bunch of earthquakes in it, however there never is any sense of chaos, panic and destruction in the movie. Every time a quake hits the camera starts shaking and we get to see some glass shatter but we never get to see any real destruction. Maybe this actually is a good thing as well, since if the movie would have wanted to show more destruction it would have meant that it would have to feature more CGI in it, which is one of the things that's absolutely appalling about the movie.
The special effects are all simply horrible and it's the type of stuff everybody with a normal family computer is able to create nowadays. Bad CGI is always a big distraction but in this case it's not just bad CGI, it's absolutely awful CGI. Most random and the most awful moment of the movie is when out of nowhere some random CGI hippos appear and start to attack our 'heroes'. Yeah, don't even ask...
Perhaps the only thing that matches the movie its poor CGI is the acting. My goodness, was that awful! Sure, it's true that the actors didn't had a very good script to work with and most of their lines were just horrible but somehow I still don't believe that any of the actors in this movie are capable of acting any better, in any other random movie and type of role. I'm still not really sure what's worse; The acting, the CGI or the story.
The story is kept far too simple throughout the entire movie, which ensures that it also remains a predictable one. It's of course also far from a very convincing movie, with silly explanations and technologies. The main character for instance is constantly running around clinging on to her iPad, which helps her to predict exactly when and where the next big quake is going to hit and how big it's going to be. I don't know what app she's using but it sure looks need and helpful! Too bad it doesn't look or works out very convincing as well for the movie.
One of the other reasons why there never is any sense of panic or danger is because the movie only focuses on just an handful of characters, who also are all related to each other, at only just an handful of different locations. There are no mass scenes and the streets and buildings throughout the movie all look dead.
Now, "San Andreas" doesn't look like a very good movie to me but I still dare to say (without having seen that movie yet) that you're way better off watching that one, rather than this cheap, nonsensical and poorly made knockoff, from the boys and girls at The Asylum.
3/10
Watch trailer
Oh, how I love watching these bad, silly, terrible, cheap knockoffs done by The Asylum. No, of course "San Andreas Quake" isn't a good movie and I can't even call if a fun or very entertaining one but there is always something very fascinating about watching a quickly made, cheap and poorly done movie, that has absolutely nothing original- or even remotely decent to offer.
It's obvious this movie was quickly made to cash in on the success of "San Andreas" and to fool people into thinking that both are the same movie. A tactic often used by The Asylum and it's probably the only reason why they are still around and are able to make tons of movies each year, fore the quality of their movies absolutely never, in no way, justifies the company's existence and 'populairity'.
All disaster flicks are of course more or less the same and they often follow the same patterns and feature the same sort of clichés in them. This movie is no different in that regard but what is worse is that the movie isn't even trying to be somewhat surprising with its story or characters. All characters basically are such big stereotypes that you already know in advance what's going to happen to them in the story. As a matter of fact, despite featuring many of the usual disaster movie clichés, it's a movie that never really manages to feel like a true disaster flick as well.
As you would have guessed already, this movie features a whole bunch of earthquakes in it, however there never is any sense of chaos, panic and destruction in the movie. Every time a quake hits the camera starts shaking and we get to see some glass shatter but we never get to see any real destruction. Maybe this actually is a good thing as well, since if the movie would have wanted to show more destruction it would have meant that it would have to feature more CGI in it, which is one of the things that's absolutely appalling about the movie.
The special effects are all simply horrible and it's the type of stuff everybody with a normal family computer is able to create nowadays. Bad CGI is always a big distraction but in this case it's not just bad CGI, it's absolutely awful CGI. Most random and the most awful moment of the movie is when out of nowhere some random CGI hippos appear and start to attack our 'heroes'. Yeah, don't even ask...
Perhaps the only thing that matches the movie its poor CGI is the acting. My goodness, was that awful! Sure, it's true that the actors didn't had a very good script to work with and most of their lines were just horrible but somehow I still don't believe that any of the actors in this movie are capable of acting any better, in any other random movie and type of role. I'm still not really sure what's worse; The acting, the CGI or the story.
The story is kept far too simple throughout the entire movie, which ensures that it also remains a predictable one. It's of course also far from a very convincing movie, with silly explanations and technologies. The main character for instance is constantly running around clinging on to her iPad, which helps her to predict exactly when and where the next big quake is going to hit and how big it's going to be. I don't know what app she's using but it sure looks need and helpful! Too bad it doesn't look or works out very convincing as well for the movie.
One of the other reasons why there never is any sense of panic or danger is because the movie only focuses on just an handful of characters, who also are all related to each other, at only just an handful of different locations. There are no mass scenes and the streets and buildings throughout the movie all look dead.
Now, "San Andreas" doesn't look like a very good movie to me but I still dare to say (without having seen that movie yet) that you're way better off watching that one, rather than this cheap, nonsensical and poorly made knockoff, from the boys and girls at The Asylum.
3/10
Watch trailer
