The Players:
Sean Connery: John Patrick Mason
Nicolas Cage: Stanley Goodspeed
Ed Harris:Gen. Francis X. Hummel
David Morse: Major Tom Baxter
John C. McGinley: Marine Capt. Hendrix
Bokeem Woodbine Sgt. Crisp
Directed by: Michael Bay.
Written by: David Weisberg, Douglas S. Cook and Mark Rosner.
Running time: 129 minutes. Rated R (for strong violence, language
and a sex scene).
T he script for "The Rock" must have been easy to develop; the effort required no more than cutting and pasting from some well-known action films. Discerning movie-goers will enjoy spotting the similarities more than the narration itself.
The plot might appear new. It is not. But by enlarging it to an impossibly grand level, the scheme appears novel. General Hummel and his band of ex-military cronies have holed up a few dozen citizens, on Alcatraz, against their express wishes. Hummel (Ed Harris) plays an amply decorated veteran who is piqued with the government's callousness. He has managed to procure--no effort is made to explain how--missiles equipped with a devastating chemical and in a strongly worded satellitic conversation with the Pentagon, he promises to saturate San Francisco with the assistance of these weapons. He could be persuaded to change his mind. For $100 million--a sum he claims will benefit his cohorts and relations of people who died under his command whilst on a clandestine goverment mission. Pentagon officials, gathered in that familiar this-is-where-we-conduct-business-with-the-radicals conference room, are depicted as being convincingly stumped.
Hummel's threats are met with the mandatory hustle to get the Chief involved, and the bird who plays the President, I am sure, has ventured from other movie sets. The Commander in Chief, on receiving news of the ex-Marines' mischief, clutches at the brow and staggers and we get the impression he, like the rest of his staff, is well and truly licked to a custard. "Executive Decision", "Under Siege", and "Outbreak", have employed the-Prez-is-being-briefed routine with heartier results. That the source of terrorism is homespun is about the extent of freshness Michael Bay ("Bad Boys") infuses in the first few minutes.
The movie's lead gets Hollywood's translation of a dramatic introduction when a goop drops the name of Stanley
Goodspeed (Nicolas Cage). Stan is an FBI agent proficient in chemical weapons. When we meet him, he is all
of a twitter because his betrothed, Carla (Vanessa Marcil), has just
let it on that she is pregnant. Stan
stops tottering long enough to soliloquize on the
futility of bringing a new soul into this terrible world.
Shakespeare would have liked him. Bay goes out of his way to establish Goodspeed as one
who is incapable of saying "boo" to a goose--not that his inability matters since he is merely expected to
break into Alcatraz and debilitate a few bombs.
A few obscure faces litter the SEAL squad that is assembled to break into the "Rock"; exceptions to the anonymity are Goodspeed and John Patrick Mason (Sean Connery). A forsworn British intelligence agent, Mason is regarded to be the only successful escapee from Alcatraz, and one who is supposed to be full of the inside stuff. Forgive me if I have this wrong: To be tagged a successful breakee, isn't one supposed to remain at large? Never mind, for it stands that the chump was apprehended and deposited, sans a trial, into a maximum security establishment--where he has spent 33 years. Now, he is in the evening of his life, long-haired, dingy, and understandably nettled. Connery and Cage's first concurrent scene is probably the last time "The Rock" vows anything decent. Mason's recruitment, after a cagey (no pun intended) tête-à-tête with Goodspeed, somehow spawns a silly--albeit visually spectacular- -car chase that's rather reminiscent of "Bullitt". For a bloke reputed to have pocketed Hoover's files, getaways seem to be Mason's weak-point: After smashing a pretty sportscar and ducking into a park to meet his long-ignored daughter, he returns to, with the aspect of a man disbelieving the fact that the script actually forces him to, the Law's fold.
Minutes later, the bunch can be observed stealing through the night in a chopper, awaiting
placement on the island, upon reaching which Mason pinpoints, almost by rote, Alcatraz's Achilles heel.
The Rock's entrails appear more glamorous than Clint Eastwood might remember from the time he made
his "Escape from Alcatraz". All forms of industrial machinery decks the passages, under one of which
Mason slides and disappears. A "click" informs us that Mason has unlocked a
door, presumably the one that he used top make his escape years ago, and is welcoming his mates to the "Rock". Makes it all look rather elementary does Mason.
Bay relies upon "Executive Decision" to provide a suitable method for isolating the two leads
from the rest of the flab that is the SEAL team. The gang, save for Mason and Stan, is annihilated in a
senseless and annoying skirmish. Between the slayings and the explosions and the tech talk, Stan and
Mason are allowed carefully rehearsed "glib" remarks.The duo's banter falls on deaf ears, and just when
it seems improbable that they should be bounding all over the prison grounds with abandon, the nibs have
them disclosed. Instead of skinning our heroes, Hummel good-naturedly bungs them in a pair of cells and
sets the stage for the movie's lowest point: With nothing more than a rope and a hook, Mason
manipulates the cells' locking mechanism and suddenly, the "Rock" appears easier to break in and out of
than a child's pen.
"Crimson Tide" serves as inspiration for another scene--details of which I will, more
out of fatigue than consideration, not reveal. Through the commotion, the digital clock, imposing the deadline,
flickers on and off, subtracting and stalling time as and when needed. Even before the time expires, the
Pentagon glues together a "plan" to raze Alcatraz with Therma Plasmite. "Outbreak" steeled our nerves
with a similar exigency so, instead of chewing the nails to the bone when the F-16's take off with the TP,
we slump in our seats, knowing all will be well. We'll also throw our hands up, convinced that
movie making is not all that difficult. Three quarters into the yarn and there is hardly a
molecule of doubt about the outcome. Just once, a director could have taken bolder measures by
knocking off one of the leads plus a few thousand denizens here and there, and spearing the happy ending
instead of engaging slanted penmanship to portray the villains as inane, establishment loathing individuals.
"The Rock" tries to be immortal--by garnishing the plot with unnecessary characters,
preposterous scenes, and a plethora of explosions--when a terse, grim enactment would have played
better. In his efforts to outdo some of the decade's biggest, Michael Bay borrows without remorse,
leaving us feeling cheated. In the process he dwindles the Academy Award winners' skills. Cage and
Connery deserved more respect from the script. However, they flash their class--occasionally overcoming
the foul ruse that is the work of Messrs. Weisberg, Cook and Rosner. It goes without saying that had
Nicolas and Sean not figured in the credits, "The Rock" would have plummeted down the summer's ranks
like a...well...you know what I mean. At best, it serves as an introduction, to coming of age youngsters,
to a typical action fare. When I was a young prune, the "Rambo"s and the "Terminator"s filched my
allowance. Likewise, "The Rock" will go down as nothing more than a generation's first action-adventure
movie. Perfectly reasonable.
Reviewed 6/09/1996
Copyright©1996, Mesmer Productions. All rights reserved.
