Among the critics of Brad Peyton's "San Andreas" starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson are experts who claim that the writers of the action drama thriller had not done their science homework.
The screenplay of "San Andreas" was written by Carlton Cuse based on the story of Andre Fabrizio and Jeremy Passmore. The story revolves around the dangerous journey of rescue-chopper pilot Ray played by The Rock across California to rescue his daughter in the outcome of a colossal earthquake in the state.
Since the "San Andreas" writers opted to put their massive earthquakes and tsunami in San Andreas, Calif., critics said they should have moved the magnitude 9 event and a city-inundating wave of water about a thousand miles north to Portland and Seattle because San Andreas, Calif., cannot produce such.
"Even if the entire San Andreas were to break all at once from north to south you wouldn't get anything larger than an 8-ish earthquake," Jean Paul Ampuero explained, NBC News quoted him as saying.
Ampuero is an assistant professor at Caltech, the institution from which scientist-hero Lawrence played by Paul Giamatti in "San Andreas" is supposed to hail.
Early in "San Andreas," a swarm of earthquakes fault shakes the Hoover Dam to pieces on an undiscovered Nevada, which is very unlikely, according to Nevada's state seismologist and Nevada Seismological Laboratory director Graham Kent of the at the University of Nevada.
Kent explained that the engineers who built the Hoover Dam are aware of faults in the area so they designed it with earthquakes in mind.
As Deadline pointed out, "San Andreas" is one of the funniest films of the year although it is supposed to be a disaster movie and not comedy.