LOS ANGELES: California's long-feared mega quake hits movie screens this week with "San Andreas," but the big-budget movie has thrown up a fault line between critics and filmgoers even before its release.
The movie, which stars Dwayne Johnson, has only a 41 percent critics' rating on the Rotten Tomatoes film review website -- although 96 percent of cinema-goers say they want to see it.
All eyes will be watching whether the flick, with its $100 million budget, can shake the box office after a lackluster week or two at the start of the traditional summer blockbuster season.
The movie, whose title refers to the San Andreas fault -- the geological rift feared mostly likely to produce a mega quake in California -- depicts San Francisco in ruins.
But those behind the film say they hope it moves beyond the traditional disaster movie by bringing emotion and personal stories to the screen.
"It is an opportunity to redefine the genre," Johnson said ahead of the film's US release this Friday.
"This is a fantastic epic... it raises the bar of the disaster movie."
"Generally when you watch this kind of movie you remember the action, the hero, how cool they were. In this one we'd like you to remember the characters," he added.
Johnson, whose past action credits include the "Fast and Furious" franchise, plays rescue chopper pilot Ray, whose wife, Emma (played by Carla Gugino), recently left him for a rich architect.
When a massive quake hits Los Angeles and a seismologist predicts another imminent and even bigger one in San Francisco, the pair are forced to set aside their differences to rescue their only daughter Blake (Alexandra Daddario).
Comments
Comments are closed.