Director: Michael Bay
Stars: Sean Connery, Nicholas Cage and Ed Harris
Genre: Action/Adventure/Crime
MPAA Rating: R (strong violence, language and a sex scene)
Running Time: 132Mins
Tagline: "Get ready to rock!"
After being discharged from the service, General Hummel (Ed Harris) decides to unite a group of soldiers and steal a deadly gas named VX Gas. A gas that when enters the nervous system, it turns it into shit. According to Nicolas Cage’s character, he describes the gas like this: “cholinesterase inhibitor. Stops the brain from sending nerve messages down the spinal cord within thirty seconds. Any epidermal exposure or inhalation and you'll know. A twinge at the small of your back as the poison seizes your nervous system,Your muscles freeze, you can't breathe, you spasm so hard you break your own back and spit your guts out. But that's after your skin melts off” In other words, you turn into shit, that simple. The general and his men take the island of Alcatraz hostage, in the island are civilians visiting the park on tour, now they are inmates for the day (yes, that was a joke, you may laugh) The FBI decides to get its top men in biochemists: Stanley Goodspeed, an eccentric guy who works for the government diffusing bombs and other biological weapons. Assigned to the project is also Commander Charles Anderson (Michael Beihn) who is the leader of the men who wil be sent into the island to attack the renegade soldiers/mercenaries in the island. But, there is still one guy missing: Sean Connery, the convict who escaped the prison before, he knows the island better than anyone else, so they will need his assistance, clever no?
I have own The Rock on DVD only once, there are two versions of it on DVD. The standard non-anamorphic DVD (which I owned) and the Criterion DVD, which i believe is out of print. But no worries, most of the features on that edition are on this blu ray.
Stars: Sean Connery, Nicholas Cage and Ed Harris
Genre: Action/Adventure/Crime
MPAA Rating: R (strong violence, language and a sex scene)
Running Time: 132Mins
Tagline: "Get ready to rock!"
Synopsis:
{According to IMDB}
"A renegade general and his group of U.S. Marines take over Alcatraz and threaten San Francisco Bay with biological weapons. A chemical weapons specialist and the only man to have ever escaped from the Rock attempt to prevent chaos."
Discussion
It is curious, even funny you might say, how all of Michael Bay’s movies are similar in style. The recipe for a Michael Bay movie is the following: Big Explosions, 360 degree shots over the protagnist as he gets up from an explosion, quick edits, fast cuts from important dialogue into shots of city landscapes….in all, these ingredients gives the audience the perfect recipe for a Michael Bay Trailer…ahem I mean Movie Trailer... I’m sorry, it’s that his movies at the end of the day are just a big fat 2 hour and 30 min trailer. Which brings me to another point, why are Bay’s movies always over the 2hr marker; like Bad Boys 2 ran for a total of 147 min...WTF? Anyway, To the point…The Rock is number 1 of the 3 only good Michael Bay films (the other’s being Bad Boys 1 and Armageddon) The Rock , even if it has most of the ridiculous music video edits and flashy car chase scenes, it is still perhaps one of the better action films of the 1990’s
After being discharged from the service, General Hummel (Ed Harris) decides to unite a group of soldiers and steal a deadly gas named VX Gas. A gas that when enters the nervous system, it turns it into shit. According to Nicolas Cage’s character, he describes the gas like this: “cholinesterase inhibitor. Stops the brain from sending nerve messages down the spinal cord within thirty seconds. Any epidermal exposure or inhalation and you'll know. A twinge at the small of your back as the poison seizes your nervous system,Your muscles freeze, you can't breathe, you spasm so hard you break your own back and spit your guts out. But that's after your skin melts off” In other words, you turn into shit, that simple. The general and his men take the island of Alcatraz hostage, in the island are civilians visiting the park on tour, now they are inmates for the day (yes, that was a joke, you may laugh) The FBI decides to get its top men in biochemists: Stanley Goodspeed, an eccentric guy who works for the government diffusing bombs and other biological weapons. Assigned to the project is also Commander Charles Anderson (Michael Beihn) who is the leader of the men who wil be sent into the island to attack the renegade soldiers/mercenaries in the island. But, there is still one guy missing: Sean Connery, the convict who escaped the prison before, he knows the island better than anyone else, so they will need his assistance, clever no?
In between the gunfire and explosions thought the flick, we find out there is an ulterior motive to the attack: money, the general talks about patriotism, defending his nation, and that he saw men die in war and not getting proper burials. But in the end it is about getting paid mula.
So what exactly makes this movie work? Well i have to say that aside the action, it is defiantly a combination of a smart plot (rare thing in a Bay film) and perfect casting; Sean Connery as the Convict who once escaped the prison and the nerdy biochemist played by Cage. I think this movie and Face Off are perhaps one of the better action packed films of the 90’s. I would also add Con Air, but haven’t seen that one yet, i have heard from many that it has the same recipe for mayhem..And that to me is just perfect. Anyone interested in showing this off on your HD-TV, read below, this is for you.
I have own The Rock on DVD only once, there are two versions of it on DVD. The standard non-anamorphic DVD (which I owned) and the Criterion DVD, which i believe is out of print. But no worries, most of the features on that edition are on this blu ray.
Here is a list of the special features
Audio Commentary
The Rock world premiere
Navy SEALs on the Range
Hollywood: Humphries & Teague
Special effects for dive
Action Effects: Movie Magic
Outtakes
Secrets of Alcatraz
Jerry Bruckheimer interview
Theatrical trailers
TV spots
Video
The video presentation on this blu ray is fucking epic; the quality of the 1080p surpasses the DVD counterpart by light-years. First of all, like I said earlier, the DVD i own was non anamorphic, meaning that it looked atrocious on an HD-TV. The only way to view it on the plasma screen was to use the zoom button, which caused the actors to look out of focus, and with little to no detail. Thankfully, to the advent of blu ray, we can now see The Rock as it was intended. The transfer I must say is spot on perfect; for a movie that is 15 years old it looks spanking brand new. You can thank that to Bay’s extensive use of lighting and flashy edits and strange camera angles. The only complaint I had with the blu ray was the darker scenes, they tended to have some artifacts here and there, but nothing too distracting. Overall this is defiantly a demo disc to show off to friends.
Audio
The sound is just as good, presented in an uncompressed 5.1 PCM Surround Sound; this mix freaking blows the roof top. I had the sound at about 45, the gunfire sounded authentic and in pristine clarity. The only issue is that in some cases the gunfire overshadows the music, in some instances that is. But aside that, the sound quality goes hand in hand with the video, epic.
Bottom Line
Buy it, don’t hesitate, this is a winner. The best choice you will make for a blu ray movie. I got this one when it first came out, so it was a bit pricey, now it goes for as little as 10 bucks on special days in places like best buy or FYE
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