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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Author
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Topic: San Andreas (2015)
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Sam Graham
AKA: "The Evil Sam Graham". Wackiness ensues.
Posts: 1431
From: Waukee, IA
Registered: Dec 2004
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posted 05-28-2015 10:16 PM
CINEMA: Fridley Copper Creek 9, Pleasant Hill, IA
AUDITORIUM: 6
PRESENTATION: Mystery Meat Digital
PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: Auditorium under renovation, screen essentially bare
RATING: Two stars (out of four)
In advance of the forthcoming nearby Cinemarkury Altoona, which has walls currently going up, Fridley is pimping this joint out. Gone is the cheesy faux palace look of the auditoriums in favor of a cheesy 70's dual color curtain decor alternating blue and gold, specifically. Which makes sense since most of the screens in this place are about as big as mall shoebox multiplexes. They've also replaced the seats with new black leather units that appear to be the same ones Cinemark is using these days. And in some cases they've upgraded the presentation. The main auditorium (5) has an NEC 4K projector and Dolby Atmos now. And sound in this auditorium also appears to have been upgraded. Very clear and great low end.
What's unfinished about this room is the screen space. There's no masking at all and the waterfall screen curtain has temporarily disappeared. (I assume it'll be back as I peeked in 5 and it still has one.) The ceiling tiles are all missing in front of the screen too, so...work in progress.
They've also updated the lobby and snack bar, which has updated offerings including hamburgers.
THE PLOT: Shake shake shake...shake shake shake...shake your...wackiness ensues.
We have the usual disaster movie suspects...a disaster, a college expert shouting "I TOLD YOU SO!", a strained relationship complete with unsigned divorce papers, the dickish new boyfriend (though he really only makes one dick move here), the daughter, the geeky guy she's going to fall for when he rescues her, and his scene-stealing sidekick brother. Mom, dad, daughter, and the boys overcome insurmountable odds and a drowning metaphor to be reunited amidst the world literally falling apart around them in ways that I'm pretty sure indicate the director had no idea how earthquakes or tsunamis really work, and didn't care as long as it looked cool.
There's two reasons to see this movie...Dwayne Johnson and Carla Gugino. Johnson is his usual great self, and Gugino is a dead ringer for Smokey and the Bandit-era Sally Field. Even if they have the most groan-inducing line about second base in the history of cinema.
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 06-01-2015 03:02 AM
I've seen this at a local discount multiplex. Long time no see, but the situation didn't really improve. Showing people 35 minutes worth of commercials and trailers after the advertised starting time isn't just pushing it, but should be considered a crime...
We all know that the average multiplex cinema operation revolved primarily around selling overpriced snacks, beverages and candy and not giving a flying fuck about presentation standards. Now with remote controlled D-Cinema, this has evolved to not remotely giving a flying fuck about presentation standards.
First off all, this big bulky 35mm dust collector that hasn't seen a film in 5 years and will, unfortunately, never see any film again... Why not push it to the side a little, so your digital projector can take center spot? Otherwise, try some lens shift maybe? It might just get your picture somewhat more evenly focused on screen.
Also, it's really great to know your surrounds are working, but the real action is still on screen, so why do your stage speakers sound like they're on Oxycontin? The calibration in this auditorium was a total disgrace for your ears. I guess somewhere in the last few years, the audio processor died and the monkey who replaced it didn't even care to get the presets even somewhat right.
So, the stage was set for a crappy movie, unfortunately, it delivered on all expectations.
It took three and a half years to shoot this movie. Apparently writing a script this formulaic and bland is hard business. Also, if you make a movie about the destruction of California, make sure you film most of it in Australia.
You know, I could go on endlessly about unimportant stuff like physics, probability, believability, etc. But let's just pretend this is a fantasy movie, maybe a fairy tale, even including *spoilers* an happy ending, and all this kind of stuff really isn't that important. Then again, maybe, they could just leave out a destruction scene or two and put the money saved into some real story and screen writers?
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Jim Cassedy
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1661
From: San Francisco, CA
Registered: Dec 2006
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posted 06-01-2015 09:51 AM
I did a special preview screening of this movie for some of the 'top brass' and
members of the SF Police & Fire Departments, assorted disaster response teams
and some staff from SF Office Of Emergency Services one day last week.
(Also attending were many of the officers involved in having to deal with the
downtown traffic jams due to street closures during the 'San Andreas' filming)
Before the movie, several of the officials got up to address the group to make
some opening remarks. At one point during her speech, the Chief of the SF Fire
Department said:
". . . and speaking of safety- - somebody needs to fix THAT exit sign",
as she pointed to a sign over one of the rear exits with burned out bulbs.
D'oh! ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif) (To quote Maxwell Smart: "Sorry about that, chief.")
The news media where there, and after the movie several of the earthquake
experts were asked for their opinion, and for the most part they just rolled
their eyes. One of them summed it up best by saying "it's only a movie"
Yes, as Marcel points out, this is a good film to make sure your surrounds are
working. But, I was a little surprised there's no ATMOS mix of this movie, as it
seems to be well suited for it. I don't know how they decide which movies
get the ATMOS treatment and which don't.
Friday, for example, I did a private "industry screening" for Warner Brothers
of a movie that comes out next month, and was very surprised to see it had
an ATMOS mix, since it's a comedy, without ANY action sequences and is pretty
much 100% a 'dialogue picture'.
I had to stay in the booth, so I couldn't go watch it down in the auditorium
to hear what, if anything, the ATMOS track added to the overall movie.
But the ATMOS addition to that flick seemed pretty pointless to me.
Go figure. . .
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 06-01-2015 10:50 AM
Cinema: Harkins Theatres Bricktown 16
Screen: Cine Capri
Format: 2D, Dolby Atmos
Presentation Problems: Image a tad bit on the dim side
Rating: 2 stars out of 4
Some friends of mine were spending the evening in Oklahoma City and wanted to check out San Andreas. I went along with it, knowing this was probably going to be a pretty dumb spectacle. We ended up having a good time laughing at a bunch of the implausible situations and completely illogical actions taken by characters -all to support two very important priorities: make shit that looks cool on the screen and do shit that keeps the spotlight on the name above the title star. It should be fun to see how Screen Junkies takes apart this movie in a Honest Trailer installment.
The Rock, piloting a helicopter: "We're gonna tip the hat." That scene early in the movie is a clear hint viewers need to unplug much of their brain during this movie. The whole thing is about spectacle. It's bubble gum for the eye balls. Nothing more.
Even in that respect I think the movie makers could have done a better job with the spectacle. Some important landmarks in California and Nevada get destroyed on screen, but they totally waste many opportunities to show big things getting pulverized in more satisfyingly dramatic fashion. The Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge is a marvel of engineering; you only get a partial glimpse of it falling down in the background as characters run for their lives on the Hoover Dam. The U.S. Bank Tower is currently the tallest building in Los Angeles. We don't get a good view of it getting destroyed at all, certainly nothing like how it got detonated in Independence Day. The Transamerica Pyramid Center is arguably the most well known tower in San Francisco. This movie has it toppling over far in the distance. There are plenty of close up, dramatic shots of skyscrapers collapsing and lots of other things getting destroyed, but it's all generic stuff.
I suspect this scattered and very generic approach to the spectacle was about saving money on the production and putting more cash into the pockets of a select, small group of people. It might have taken more time and money to show the destruction of well known landmarks in more dramatic, better composed fashion.
quote: Jim Cassedy
Yes, as Marcel points out, this is a good film to make sure your surrounds are
working. But, I was a little surprised there's no ATMOS mix of this movie, as it
seems to be well suited for it.
San Andreas actually does have a Dolby Atmos mix. Maybe they didn't have it available for industry preview screenings. The theater where I watched it definitely played it in Atmos. I thought it was a pretty good Atmos mix too. That was one of the few positive things about the movie.
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 06-04-2015 09:55 AM
EARTHQUAKE 2 (why did it take them so long between cracks in the earth?), only SAN ANDREAS was done with 1000 computer artists sitting at a bank of 1000 computer screens and a couple of thousand miles of green screen material, whereas EARTHQUAKE was done with 2 or 3 thousand sfx stagehands and elaborate, real-time break-away props on a city built on Universal's backlot, all of which had to be actually destroyed in the process. Now which production do you think was more fun to work on? Digital...it sucks the fuckin fun out of EVERYTHING.
That said, aside from unlikable actors -- The Rock (what a pretentious asshole of a name) really annoys me for some reason -- playing one dimensional roles in 3D, and a script that well, if you chuckled at it, you were rolling on the floor laughing at the inane plot what there was and stunts. Yes, let's get a helicopter to fly SIDEWAYS like a Millennium Falcon between falling buildings. OK, so I wasn't exactly ROTFL because the floor in this rat-hole was a smelly, sticky rug harboring more of a health risk than anything depicted on the screen would ever be....but I digress.
For all the silliness and for all the plot holes, for a 3D fan, I have to admit, this was a visual FEAST. I was in awe at some of the imaginative composition and fluidity of the shots and at times, the beauty of the shear spectacle.
But, the pure saving grace of all the nonsense was the great music score in one super sound mix on steroids. For all the myriad of faults in presentation at the particular "premium" Regal hole-in-th-wall where I saw SAN ANDREAS -- the sound was so impressive it really saved the day for me. They were getting subbass sound pressure levels that were moving viscera around (and now with my spanking new aorta stent, I was wondering if the near-Sensurround playback could maybe dislodge it?). The mix was molto impressive. They sound designer were able to get just the right balance between bombastic music and destruction rumble, yet you could hear the awful dialog without distortion....by no means an easy feat. Gregg Landaker and Tim LeBlanc were sound re-recording mixers -- what a great job.
It did flash thru my mind as I felt the pounding roar of a huge chunk of concrete fall, what the other poor slobs in the next theatre must have been suffering, knowing that Regal couldn't have worried too much about sound isolation given all the other stuff they obviously didn't worry about in this "premium" crapola room. But then I remembered the premium price I paid and I though, the guy in the next theatre is on his own.
Anyway, if you pick your venue wisely, the sound mix alone delivered plenty of pizzazz to enjoy. If you are a 3D fan (the two or three of us on FT), depth levels are keeps realistic and good attention is paid to convergence points from shot to shot -- most important to prevent eyeballs crashing into each other. Over-all, the 3D was quite oooh & ahhh-making. I had one of my fellow 3D aficionados who hadn't been to a 3D movie in a few months -- says he's had his fill of Pixar cartoons, no matter how clever they are -- he leaned over to me during one of the really impressive aerial shots where infinity went way deep behind the screen and building tops jutting out, floating in air in front of it and he said, "DAMN, I forgot how much I love 3D." I said, "I never forget."
Actually, on the drive home, everyone seemed to genuinely have a good time (except for me, as I quietly seethed about the hot spot and the soft focus and the lack of masking and the bad smell from the stinky, sticky carpet and the $8 surcharge they stole out of my pocket for it all). So, I guess you really can't ask for much more from a movie, other than everyone having a good time....well, sure you can -- you can ask that it requires to get at least a FEW brain cells firing, but you know what I mean. Which I guess tells me, there can be enough fun stuff in a bad movie to still make it a really good time...you know, like these 1.5/5 ers.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 06-04-2015 12:21 PM
In my original review I failed to mention seeing a real life spectacle on the drive home back to Lawton. I watched a drunk driver nearly flip his vehicle on I-44. We were riding in my friend's Mercury luxury car when this small red Chevy passed us doing around 100mph. We caught up to the guy later and he was driving very erratic, weaving to left and then correcting to the right. He went too far left and hit the concrete Jersey barrier. The Chevy got lifted nearly sideways. The driver pulled to the right, with his car driving on only the right two wheels. It dropped back down on all four tires. And the drunk kept on going! I called 911 to get OHP on his tail. AFAIK, the drunk driver exited the turnpike and got away before the highway patrol could bust him.
Sad thing: no big, loud Atmos-like moments with that car crash, at least not what we could hear inside that luxury car.
quote: Jonathan Goeldner
I went into this with very low expectations and I was personally entertained - it's far better than '2012' and I thought the special effects were decent.
2012 was a ridiculous movie. No doubt about that. However, I thought its visuals were a lot better than the ones in San Andreas. Scenes of destruction were much better composed and more dramatic looking.
It's almost like San Andreas was trying to be subtle. "Oh, let's not show the TransAmerica Pyramid tower falling over in a dramatic close up view. That'll be too obvious and literal. Let's show it way off in the distance so viewers might miss it!" These guys were taking their movie too seriously when they should have been having more fun with the subject matter. San Andreas isn't Merchant-Ivory. It isn't even Deep Impact.
Disaster movies like this aren't the place for subtlety. Not only should they have shown the TransAmerica Pyramid falling over very close up, they should have shown it close enough so you could see people raining out of it -kind of like what Michael Bay did with New York's Chrysler Building in Armageddon. Hell, have the pointy end of the TransAmerica Pyramid take out a douche-bag character we don't like.
quote: Buck Wilson
I WISH THEY WOULD PLAY THE "ATMOS UNFOLD" TRAILER RATHER THAN THE DOLBY CINEMA TRAILER.
The Harkins Theater in Bricktown pretty much only plays the Unfold trailer in front of its Atmos shows. They've played Amaze a few times, but it just doesn't have the same "in your face" impact. Plus, the big sound/zoom end of Unfold sets up a good opportunity to say "suck it IMAX" out loud. I did that once. The comment got some laughter and applause.
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