Review: 'San Andreas' is full of faults

• Critic's rating%3A 1.5 stars %28out of 5%29
• Johnson's character is quickly established as a hero.
• The effects are overwhelming%2C forcing you to submit to the absurdity of the story.

Hahahaha.

Really, that's about all there is to say about "San Andreas," the brain-rattling disaster of a disaster film directed by Brad Peyton and starring Dwayne Johnson. (Don't worry, systematic pummeling is all your brain will be used for during the film anyway.)

To appreciate the effect of watching this movie, here is a suggestion: Go to your music collection and find the loudest, angriest heavy metal music you've got (something where they use jackhammers for percussion), put on headphones and crank it up UNTIL EVERYTHING SOUNDS LIKE THIS. It's crucial that it be so loud that you cannot think straight. Otherwise you might pay attention.

In many ways, "San Andreas" is the summer blockbuster taken to its logical extreme. It's bigger, louder and more effects-heavy than anything else out there. It wants to make you feel, not in the emotional sense, but in the tactile one.

Mission accomplished. You definitely feel this film, the way you feel a hammer hitting you in the head.

The story begins with a death-defying rescue by helicopter in LA that quickly establishes Afghanistan veteran Ray (Johnson) as our hero. Hell, he's practically Superman, but we don't know that yet. Peyton shoots him with the sun behind him, though, so the halo effect is a hint that he's not your average dude.

Ray is planning to drive his daughter, Blake (Alexandra Daddario), to college in San Francisco the next day. But in the meantime, a massive earthquake strikes and destroys the Hoover Dam, confirming the worst fears of seismologist Lawrence (Paul Giamatti). This is the side plot meant to give the movie a sheen of … I don't know, something other than buildings falling down.

Ray and his team are going to fly up to the dam to help with rescue efforts, so Blake flies to school with Daniel (Ioan Gruffudd), the ultra-rich oily developer her mother Emma (Carla Gugino) has been seeing, on his private jet.

Lawrence warns that the quakes are nowhere near over, and boy, does he know how to undersell the point. Massive quakes strike all along the San Andreas fault, from Los Angeles, where Emma is, all the way to San Francisco, where Blake has arrived. (Don't worry if you don't know much about the fault; this is the kind of movie where brilliant professors like Lawrence explain grade-school basics to their brilliant students at Cal Tech.)

So that's it, really. The rest of the film is divided between computer-enhanced earthquake disasters (with a tsunami thrown in for good measure) and the occasional timeout so that Ray and Emma can see the error of splitting up. They travel to San Francisco to find Blake, and while it's a pretty big city, never sell short the power of absurd coincidence when it comes to Dwayne Johnson being a hero.

Ray has taught Blake well — she helps new friend Ben (Hugo Johnstone-Burt) and his little brother, Ollie (Art Parkinson), navigate the chaos.

Of which there is a gracious plenty. There are also, presumably, many millions of deaths, but we only see one in any kind of detail, and it's a plot point.

"San Andreas" is a throwback of sorts to '70s disaster films like "Airport" (though, in retrospect, that film looks more and more like "The Love Boat" set on an airplane). This film is conservative in its approach in that man is not to blame, unlike some of the environmentally charged disaster films like "Frogs" that enjoyed a brief vogue, also in the 1970s. This is an act of God, though a pretty angry God by the looks of things.

But who are we kidding? The purpose of "San Andreas" is not to make us think, but to make us gape, to pummel us with effect and effect until we finally give in.

Fair enough. Uncle. I need a Tylenol anyway.

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: twitter.com/goodyk.

'San Andreas'

Director: Brad Peyton.

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, Alexandra Daddario.

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