In the lead up to its release, San Andreas has been heavily compared to the films of Roland Emmerich, namely The Day After Tomorrow and 2012, which of course are up to this point the epitome of big-budget, brainless human extinction cinema. Dumb though they are, they turned huge profits at the box office, and so it's clear that there's a massive global audience for this brand of guilty pleasure filmmaking. San Andreas certainly shares a common DNA with those movies, though it manages to be marginally better for a number of reasons: the slight self-awareness, the less-brutal run-time (this is a whole 44 minutes shorter than 2012 for one), and the more even-handed pacing all ensure that this is a much easier, more satisfying watch than Emmerich's frustrating (if undeniably well-crafted) type of disaster movie nonsense. Don't be confused: San Andreas is no masterwork, but it gains the edge over the aforementioned films nevertheless. In short, if you dug those films, you'll no doubt have a blast with this one too. And now, it's time for the 9 "downs" which hold the film back from true greatness...