Wiped out: Things don'€™t look good for San Francisco in San Andreas. (Courtesy of Warner Bros)

Brad Peyton'€™s San Andreas is a big-budget disaster movie about an earthquake that strikes California'€™s notorious fault. The real disaster, however, is the film itself.

The movie tells the story of Ray Gaines (Dwayne '€œThe Rock'€ Johnson), an Afghanistan war veteran and a Los Angeles Fire Department helicopter pilot.

Johnson plays Ray as the typical All-American hero '€” handsome, muscular and faultless. Kudos to the producers for letting someone other than a white male carry the project.

In the film, Gaines takes the blame for the death of his daughter Mallory, something that eventually drives wife, Emma (Carla Gugino), to ask for a divorce and to go into the arms of property mogul Daniel Riddick (Ioan Gruffudd).

Ray and Emma also have another daughter Blake (Alexandra Daddario), whose main function is apparently to serve as eye candy, by, for example, calling her dad from Daniel'€™s pool while clad only in a bikini.

Sadly, such scenes might provide the only motivation to stop some viewers from walking out after the film'€™s cliched first act.

While Blake lives the high life courtesy of mom'€™s richy-rich boyfriend, poor Ray is left mundane chores, such as delivering a bicycle to her new home or saving her from a tsunami-hit skyscraper later on.

As for Daniel, his story arc is predictable as the superficial nice guy who turns coward in a crisis. Gruffudd'€™s prospects have plummeted after his big screen debut as the lead in the Fantastic Four.

Back to the story.

Seismologists Lawrence (Paul Giamatti) and Kim (Will Yun Lee) at the California Institute of Technology decide to test their new earthquake-detection gizmo in safe and controlled circumstances.

I'€™m kidding. The scientists test it at the nearby Hoover Dam in Nevada, causing a magnitude-7 temblor that kills Kim and destroys the dam.

The destruction of one of the Modern Wonders of the World serves as an introduction to what a disaster movie with an almost unlimited effects budget can offer.

Our hero: Dwayne Johnson strikes a '€œworried'€ pose as disaster strikes in San Andreas. (Courtesy of Warner Bros)

The work of cinematographer Steve Yedlin, who is also attached to the next Star Wars installment, is done on a massive scale, offering a detailed and realistic depiction of the dam crumbling and the ensuing floods.

Lawrence mumbles some technobabble about upcoming greater earthquakes from Los Angeles to San Francisco and this is when the dysfunctional Gaines family become the center of the universe amid the deaths of millions.

After Rick has to cancel a trip to take Blake back to her university in San Francisco due to the earthquake, she has no problems with going with Daniel on his private jet.

There she meets cute English architect Ben (Hugo Johnstone-Burt) and his younger brother Ollie (Art Parkinson). The actors playing the brothers have horrific English accents '€” apparently they are Australian and Irish, respectively.

In any event Blake, Ben and Ollie will have to fight to survive after the big one hits San Francisco while waiting for Ray and Emma to save them.

What follows is a seemingly endless series of earthquakes. From this point on, the movie is nothing more than an onslaught of CGI-skyscraper collapses and CGI-tsunamis. It quickly grows tiresome.

What'€™s distasteful is the disregard for the millions that must be dead or dying at this point of the movie.

In one particularly offensive scene, Blake, Ben and Ollie stroll through San Francisco talking about the tourism objects there right after seeing thousands of buildings collapse before their eyes.

If you'€™re looking for substance '€” or at least a little bit of drama and proper acting, watch something else.

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San Andreas
Director: Brad Peyton
Script: Carlton Cuse
Cinematographer: Steve Yedlin
Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, Ioan Gruffudd, Alexandra Daddario
Production Company: Warner Bros.
Run time: 114 minutes