THE ROCK. Directed by Michael Bay; written by David Weisberg, Douglas S. Cook & Mark Rosner; produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer for Hollywood Pictures. Starring Nicholas Cage, Sean Connery and Ed Harris. Rated R (violence, language)
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The Rock packs enough punch for 2 or 3 summer movies. I mean, there's a car chase just 30 minutes or so into it that's exciting and explosive enough to be the climax of any ordinary action flick. And there's little let-up in the mayhem for the next 90 minutes.
Except for the usual (and maybe some more than usual) problems with straining logic and credulity, the action scenes are terrifically exciting and well-filmed. Perhaps occasionally a little TOO stylishly filmed, though. So much rapid cutting and jerky, hand-held sequences can bring on mild nausea after a while.
But the best things about The Rock are its wonderful cast and the fact that it's not all witty repartee and explosions. There's an actual attempt at a story with disturbing currents beneath the surface excitement, and there's a degree of character complexity that's missing not only from action movies, but from more than a few straight dramas as well.
Harris and a band of commandoes take over Alcatraz Island, trapping 80 tourists in the cells and threatening to blanket San Francisco with some nasty nerve gas if their demands aren't met.
But these aren't ordinary terrorists with the usual demands. Harris' character is a highly decorated Marine GENERAL, for goodness sakes, and his major demand is ackowledgement of men killed in covert operations, from the Vietnam era to the present.
Another unusally complex figure is drafted to help thwart the general's plans. Connery plays a mysterious ex-British agent who is supposedly the only person ever to escape from Alcatraz (known, of course, as "the Rock"). If he will cooperate with the FBI and the Navy Seals who want to neutralize the terrorists, maybe he'll earn a pardon for his unspecified crimes.
But these guys aren't even the best of the cast! That's Cage, as a chemical weapons expert whose job is to defuse the poison bombs, after he gets past the terrorists and finds the rockets, that is. Cage has the best lines and some of the best action, all delivered in his best goofy, Raising Arizona, Red Rock West style. His relationship with Connery is worth the price of admission by itself.
There are a couple of deaths that are grislier than they needed to be (although at least one provides the occasion for one of Cage's best lines, so I guess it's justified). But although there's a lot of violence, it's mostly of the cartoonish variety.
The Rock is the best summer movie I've seen so far this year; and the later releases will have to go something to top it.
June 26, 1996