The Rock

Following his breakthrough success with Bad Boys in 1995, Michael Bay wasn't ready to take any time-off and went straight into another high octane adventure with The Rock which released in 1996. I remember first catching this on TV as a young teenager during the San Francisco car chase and was immediately hooked as the explosive chaos erupted onscreen. Having seen it in full several times later, would the nearly 30 action flick still, as the movie puts it, have some "lead in its pencil" or have I become too jaded to find joy in a simple action flick? 

The story sees a group of soldiers take hostages on Alcatraz Island and point deadly rockets at San Francisco, threatening to fire unless their demands are met. And so a small team, including a scientist and aging spy who was once imprisoned on the island, are sent to the save the lives of thousands of innocent civilians. 

Running just over two hours, The Rock packs a great cast of names with Sean Connery as the aging spy, Nicolas Cage as the nerdy scientist who understands how to dismantle the deadly rockets but who also had a baby on the way, and Ed Harris as the embittered, highly decorated soldier who plans to right the wrongs of his country against his fellow servicemen in the most extreme ways. And it is Harris' surprisingly noble motivation that has become twisted by his anger which gives The Rock an added gravitas, even if the film regrettably moves the focus away from this as the action unfolds. 

Watching this again, The Rock is so much fun as we get to see an older Connery on form as he fires bullets and throw expletives while Cage is perfectly paired alongside him. The story flows along well but I did find the action set pieces lacking in a few places; the coal cart action sequence felt strangely out of pace, and I couldn't help shake the final fight scene would have been better if it somehow incorporated Cage and Connery together. Instead, Cage is fighting the main villain on his own while Connery dispatches random goons in what felt like reshoots. These are nit-picks but I feel The Rock has a lot more potential hidden within the ingredients. 

The Rock remains a lot of fun to watch and certainly one of Bay's best films. The story is very good, a lot of the set pieces are exciting to watch and the cast are terrific but I just can't escape there are flaws in the film once you start to look for them. All in all, this is a fun one to watch with friends before Bay would set his sights on outer space two years later with Armageddon.