Standard action picture for the popcorn generation, with a more exciting plot and classier cast than most.

Rating: 7/10 (21 December 2005)

For his second film (following on from the noisy no-brainer "Bad Boys") director Michael Bay gives us "The Rock". This pounding, pulsating action flick is full of plot holes and implausible action set pieces, but has terrific energy and a handful of engaging performances which make its flaws forgivable. It is a film that will never win any awards for subtlety, but it is effective in doing what it sets out to do - that being to fill two hours of screen time with spectacle and entertainment. Bay is a director whose work I generally tend to dislike but with "The Rock" he has, for once, done a good job (aided in no small part by the excitingly silly premise and the game performances of Connery, Cage and Harris).
Disgruntled American war hero General Francis X. Hummel (Ed Harris) and a team of heavily armed mercenaries seize the San Francisco island-prison of Alcatraz. They imprison a group of tourists and set up a series of missiles at various points around the island. Each missile contains a lethal chemical which, when released or exploded, has the capacity to kill hundreds of thousands of people in the vicinity. A team of soldiers is assembled to get onto the Rock, led by Commander Anderson (Michael Biehn). Also sent along for the purpose of disarming the missiles is inexperienced chemical weapons specialist Stanley Goodspeed (Nicholas Cage), a guy who would rather be cuddling up to his pregnant wife than tackling a bunch of impeccably-drilled renegade marines. The only problems is that none of them have any idea how to get onto Alcatraz undetected, so the Government agents have to reluctantly call upon the one man who can help them. Ex-SAS soldier John Mason (Sean Connery), who has been locked away 30 years for stealing a government microfilm and is the only man ever to have escaped from Alcatraz, is temporarily "freed" and instructed to guide the raiding party into the underground tunnels of The Rock. The raid goes awry and nearly all the would-be rescuers are captured and killed, leaving just Mason and Goodspeed to evade the bad guys, find and disarm the missiles, and save the city!!
"The Rock" is very much a packaged, polished film. Nothing raw, edgy or unpredictable here. It's a film that plays safe and delivers the requisite thrills and spills in much the same way that a roller-coaster does. As usual the bad guys can't shoot straight, and the good guys can always think of a witty remark at the very moment they dispose of a villain. The action filmed in a dizzying, lightning-fast style with whizzing pans of the camera and furious cross-cutting of camera angles. This makes the action come across as fast-paced and exciting. Hans Zimmer's score is suitably frenetic and adds to the drama. As you would expect there are predictable scenes, moments that require total suspension of belief, chunks of corny macho dialogue, and every clichÃ© in the book (including a wholly irrelevant car chase - but hey! What's a film set in San Francisco if it DOESN'T feature a car chase?!?) In spite of all this "The Rock" is a lot of fun and if you watch it for what it is, you'll find it an entertaining slice of escapism.