I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the television and film mediums and how they tell stories. The past couple years has seen a shift in the public consciousness about what television (and related services, i.e. Netflix) is and what it can do.

Gone are the days of nothing but sitcoms and gameshows. When we as a pop culture-consuming society want a strong story with deep character development, we turn to something like “House of Cards,” or “Game of Thrones” or “Breaking Bad.” The time factor is by far the most obvious advantage that television has over film. If one season spans somewhere around 12-15 hours of content, creators can take a slow-burn approach to unearthing characters while at the same time delivering the same dosage of excitement or tension that can be found on the big screen. On the other hand, film has become the event medium. It’s the place we get our “oohs” and “awes” at before heading back home and resuming our Netflix marathon.

I bring this up to illustrate, “San Andreas’” utter inability to create something that isn’t destruction or made out of wet cardboard. Yes, the destruction is cool, even if the physics underlying physics are occasionally laughably bad. However, we’re given the exact same characters and the exact same dramatic arc that we’ve seen a thousand times.

“San Andreas” couldn’t be so naive as to believe it’s the first disaster movie to use the “divorced parents have to reunite to rescue their child” schtick. “San Andreas” didn’t even pull off a good execution of that overused plot springboard. It’s full of holes and what pieces are solid easily buckle under the over-the-top power of the film’s true intent — cool earthquake shots.

All that said, the special effects are wooden and choppy in places. These types of films have come to be called “destruction porn,” for very good reason. The story setup and execution are afterthoughts. The entire experience is just an excuse to see widespread mayhem and destruction from the comfort of our theatre chairs — which is troubling enough by itself.

“San Andreas” has absolutely nothing new to offer. It’s a poorly made peep show that caters to the part of the human experience that loves seeing stuff destroyed. Granted, it’s hard to come up with something new when the time parameter is so limited, compared to a season or seasons of a television show, but surely, we can do better than this.

3 of 6 stars