The Rock (1996)

Entertaining!

I don't like many Bay movies because he has very little skill in crafting a honest and detailed movie. Armageddon was a horrendous piece of donkey dung, everything that's wrong with Hollywood was detailed in that schlock! The Rock is a slightly different proposition, it's entertaining and never tries to be anything but! The story is thin and the dialogue is typically bad at times. The action is excellent and Sean Connery makes the movie work! The direction is very Mtv, the editing is silly at times - what's with the quick cuts? Why can't I enjoy the compositions? Pathetic! But still, the pace is consistent. The acting is okay, Connery's presence elevates the material. Ed Harris is always dependable and Cage is pretty funny as Goodspeed. The music is very patriotic and but fun. Overall, entertaining, switch your brain off! After this, Bay descended into familiar MTV garbage! August 30, 2008

adventures on an island

This is a story of 2 men who come together from completely different backgrounds, where they meet in San Francisco - a city where anything's possible. Goodspeed, played by the ever lovable Nicholas Cage, is a doctor who knows a lot about chemicals - he's always talking about those chemicals, it's just his *thing*. His girlfriend is pregnant - and at the beginning of the film they plan to marry - but unforeseen circumstances bring him to the West Coast. Mason on the other hand, played by a stern and tough Sean Connery, is an old rugged man who is locked in his room reading books and philosophizing about life. "In another life," Mason admits in one scene, "I wish I were a poet or a farmer."

Against all likelihood, the men are united on a mission "to save a city", as one character puts it. After a number of transforming events, Goodspeed's intellectual prowess and his knowledge about chemicals uniquely compliments Mason's rougher edges. And despite Mason's shortcommings, he's very good at acting on instinct, a quality that Goodspeed lacks. It's an unlikely couple to say the least, but the 2 actors definitely have great chemistry.

They first meet in the streets of San Francisco in a dazzling scene that can only be described as riveting and heart-pounding. They roam through those streets as if they owned the city, and in their own particularly ways, they seem to wreak havoc wherever they go.

The plot begins to pick up when Goodspeed's job eventually takes him to a remote relatively isolated island off of the city's coast, where he is asked scour the island for those chemicals that he knows so much about, which are being used by some macho guys in their big rockets that they're flaunting at everyone. Despite being hesitant at first, Mason eventually decides to join Goodspeed on the island, where the two experience mishaps and mayhem wherever they go. Sparks and explosions light up as Goodspeed and Mason find out that they're not so different afterall. All the while, through a number of plot developments and twists, their excursions take them through underground hidden passageways and abandoned buildings and lighthouses, even SCUBA diving underwater - all in search of those chemicals that Goodspeed is so determined to find.

The screen lights up as they cross paths with other characters who have also situated themselves on the island - these include tourists, generals, and even a group of specially trained Marines.

There's a bittersweet happiness at the end, when the two characters must part. Mason needs to return to his life of annomity back in SF Bay where he also has an estranged daughter, while Goodspeed reunites with his fiance. Although nonetheless the guys have experienced intense life-changing events that will likely forever change their lives. Heart-thomping action, betrayal, loyalty, deceit, poetry, disguise, lots of action and lots of male-bonding, somehow they've all made it into this rather energetic film. August 17, 2008

Nicolas Cage best Action Movie With Some Good Humor Added

This movie is absolutely amazing from beginning to end. Ed Harris and his fellow troopers are demanding the government to pay each of the familiy members that died during desert storm, 1 million dollars because they were not given any money at all and not even a proper burial. There's a catch though obviously that he will lauch V-Ex Poisen gas into The San Francisco Bay area if the demands are not met. Harris also locks up people during a tour at Alcetraz. Here we enter Nicolas Cage who plays a biochemist/chemical weapons specialist who they need to dismantle the weapons that are filled with the deadly gas that Harris has put up. Enter Sean Connery who was a prisoner at Alcatraz and the only one who managed to escape. They need him unfortunately because he knows the insides and outside of the place so well among other areas he managed to escape from and can help Cage through The Rock. The humor beginns when Cage and Connery first meet. This is what makes the movie even better. The chemistry between them is so funny and the acting especially by Cage and Harris and Connery is brilliant as well. Add in the great action, an exciting high tension movie some great humor by all the actors makes for a highly entertaining film you will enjoy. I recommend it, A++++. August 11, 2008

Top notch entertainment

This is cracking stuff. Plenty of stunts, good one liners, car chases, gunfights - in fact it's pretty much perfect action cinema. A guaranteed good evening's TV. August 8, 2008

Class action

This is a fine, in many ways typical, Hollywood action movie, that without its fine cast wouldn't have been half the movie it is. What makes the film work so well is the performance of Sean Connery as an SAS soldier whos been kept under lock and key by the US as he had discovered the truth about JFK and numerous other US follies. In the Winter of his career (age 66 when this was made) Connery still had that magical screen presence that only a few actors are blessed with.

Pushing him close though, is a fine performance by Ed Harris as the rogue General who steals a nummber of VX missiles armed with a deadly nerve agent. Connery is the only man who knows how to get into Alcatraz (which the General has taken over) and is released to help the military and Nicholas Cage, a chemical weapons expert, get the missiles back.

This was a fantastic film to see at the cinema. I have docked it a star for a few too many over the top moments. On the small screen it does lose a little of its flash and dash, but overall though this is still a hugely entertaining film. July 19, 2008

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