A First-Rate Action Flick

Rating: 8/10 (9 May 2001)

`The Rock' effortlessly achieves what most action movies can only dream about  it's paced so well, and has action scenes and characters so good, the weak spots in the story really don't matter. Story quality is one of the major components behind making a good movie, but it's certainly not the only component, and `The Rock' demonstrates that to great effect. With great direction from Michael Bay, and with outstanding performances from the cast (especially Ed Harris), what might've been a standard, mediocre film in other hands is instead a fantastic action movie.

The premise: `The Rock', or Alcatraz, as it's more commonly known, is taken over by a bunch of military terrorists led by General Francis Hummel (Ed Harris), an American war hero. Instead of issuing the usual comic-book demands of typical terrorists, Hummel wants the United States government to pay compensation to the families of American soldiers who died in covert, officially unrecognized missions  in the amount of one hundred million dollars. Failure to pay as per Hummel's demands will result in the obliteration of San Francisco with bio-chemical weapons.
Enter the geeky Stanley Goodspeed (Nicolas Cage), a FBI bio-chemistry expert, to be part of the team needed to get onto `The Rock' and defuse the weapons. He's paired with the renowned spy John Mason (Sean Connery), who's supposedly the only person ever to successfully escape from Alcatraz  the FBI figures since Mason knew how to sneak out of the prison undetected, he'll be able to sneak back on. Together, Mason and Goodspeed travel to Alcatraz to thwart General Hummel's plans
The action is phenomenal and paced perfectly; director Michael Bay manages to keep a tense, frantic edge throughout most of the film, but seems to know just when to stop or slow things down so that the audience has a little time to breathe. Many of the action scenes seem to be cribbed from other films  a car chase scene through the streets of San Francisco is nearly lifted perfectly from `Bullitt', for example, while a three-way armed standoff is highly reminiscent of any number of Sergio Leone westerns  but they're conducted with such joyful enthusiasm, that doesn't matter. Individually, these scenes might seem like nothing but cheap knock-offs of other films, but they're brought together with such skill that the overall film looks great.
Connery is great as Mason, the spy who's seen more than any normal man should ever see, and Cage is pretty convincing as the bumbling Goodspeed, who's more comfortable with a calculator than a handgun. Both imbue their characters with enough depth to make them a cut above typical action movie heroes. Ed Harris steals the movie, though, as the gritty, weary Hummel  you wind up caring about him and his band of patriotic renegades a lot, and since he's technically the villain of `The Rock', it adds whole new dimensions to the standard action movie formula, dimensions that both Michael Bay and the screenwriters took the time to explore. Ed Harris' portrayal of Hummel literally makes `The Rock' an outstanding action movie on his own. With different actors, would this movie have been as good? Maybe . . . but I doubt it very much.
Are there problems with `The Rock?' Certainly. Hummel and his men, for example, don't seem to understand the concept of `secured radio channels', allowing Goodspeed and company to overhear vital plot information almost at will. The tunnels beneath Alcatraz are apparently bigger than the Lincoln Tunnel, and better lit to boot. The list goes on, but these are minor issues that only slightly detract from the awesome ride that is `The Rock'. Grade: A-