There are some movies that become instant comfort films for me. I'm not sure what it is about disaster flicks in particular that do it. Maybe it's the extreme circumstances that so effortlessly whisk me away from my own stresses and immerse me in a mess of chaos, claimed opportunities for heroism (or cowardice), and pure, cinematic visual spectacle. While there are some films within the genre that even I can't defend (despite them still being guilty pleasures), Brad Peyton's San Andreas isn’t really one of them.
Am I going to try to say this movie about a catastrophic earthquake wreaking havoc on San Francisco is top-tier cinema? No. But for a fun popcorn flick (now streaming with a Netflix subscription), it really gives us everything. What's more, it checks all the boxes for disaster movie tropes, so I love seeing the 2015 movie trending on Netflix among some of the newer releases like K-Pop Demon Hunters and 28 Years Later.
