Disaster movies, which pre-date the zeitgeist’s fascination with a world falling apart around us, are always great measures of the state of the Hollywood art of special effects.
In “San Andreas,” you will believe the ground is rippling under Los Angeles, the cracking collapse of Hoover Dam and a tidal wave is submerging San Francisco.
But what sells this formulaic corker of Apocalypse Porn is the cast. Paul Giamatti, as a Cal Tech seismologist who has just this minute uncovered a way to predict earthquakes, wears the horror of what he sees and what he knows is to come on his face.
Carla Gugino and Alexandra Daddario let panic, grief and relief when the shaking ends wash over them in what feels like real time.
And the actor nicknamed for a geological feature earns that nickname all over again by being that sturdy force of nature the whole movie is anchored on. Dwayne Johnson is the ex-Army chopper pilot, now with the L.A. Fire Department’s air rescue unit, a man uniquely set up to save his soon-to-be-ex-wife (Gugino, his “Race to Witch Mountain” co-star) and college coed daughter (Daddario, of TV’s first season of “True Detective”). Johnson believes what he’s seeing — buildings tumbling like dominoes, fires errupting, the sea fleeing San Francisco Bay — and we do, too.
The script and director Brad Peyton (“Journey 2: The Mysterious Island”) never escape the time-honored formula for disaster movies — the warnings, unheeded, the villainous builder (Ioan Gruffudd), the disaster-built love interest (Hugo Johnstone-Burt) thrown together with the hot coed.
But here’s what he and this production get exactly right.
The first death has meaning and pathos, as does the last one.
The medical moments and derring do can feel far fetched. But the science feels solid. God help them if they’re only bluffing. It’s a “swarm event” that runs up and down California’s infamous San Andreas Fault. Because…geology!
We know where it’s going, from the moment the ground starts shaking, until it finally, several “swarms” later, stops. But “San Andreas” is a well-executed reminder of why we don’t need to fret over the zombie apocalypse when there are plenty of things Mother Earth can throw at us. And that Hollywood’s best craftsfolk at Digital Domain, House of Moves and other effects houses are getting even better at recreating those worst case scenarios we love so much…in our movies.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense disaster action and mayhem throughout, and brief strong language

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Paul Giamatti, Carla Gugino, Alexandra Daddario, Ioan Gruffudd, Hugo Johnstone-Burt
Credits: Directed by Brad Peyton, script by Carlton Cuse. A Warner Brothers release.

Running time: 1:54