General Francis X. Hummel (Ed Harris) has stolen a toxic nerve gas, taken over Alcatraz and taken hostages. His mission? To right the wrongs of the 83 men who died under his command. The men died as part of a secret mission, but were never acknowledged for their service or bravery. Hummel is demanding 100 million dollars to give to the families of those soldiers or he will unleash the gas on the unsuspecting city of San Francisco.

Stanley Goodspeed (Nicholas Cage) is an FBI agent. More of a nerd agent then a field agent, having never seen actual field duty. Goodspeed is extremely knowledgeable, however, on chemical warfare. He is just finding out that his girlfriend is pregnant when the FBI “drafts” him to help with the General Hummel situation and the imminent danger in San Francisco.

FBI Director, Womack also reluctantly enlists the services of John Mason (Sean Connery) who has been secretly held in prison for years. Mason knows all of the FRB secrets including the information in the J. Edgar Hoover files, which included the J.F.K assassination conspiracy. Why Mason? Because, a master escape artist, he is the only man that ever escaped from Alcatraz alive. Together Goodspeed, Mason, the Marines and the rest of the FBI must save the city of San Francisco from the group of rebellious soldiers led by General Hummel.

Great movie moments:

The Rock includes an all-star cast including: John Spencer, David Morse, William Forsythe, Michael Biehn, Tony Todd, Vanessa Marcil, John McGinley, Gregory Sporleder, Steve Harris, Danny Nucci and Bokeem Woodbine. All give solid performances. Several other actors lend very small, but powerful roles including; James Patrick Caviezel, Raymond Cruz, David Marshall Grant, Phillip Baker Hall, James Laughlin and Michael Rose. The movie is like a who’s who of major Hollywood stars. With a hit cast, is it any wonder that The Rock packs such a punch?

Excellent combination of action and comedy. Cage gives a fantastic performance as the nerdy, chemist FBI agent and the chemistry between Connery and Cage is superb.

Romance in a movie is good, but straight action is even better with no bogging down of the flow. The romance between Goodspeed and his fiancé does not overshadow the story line.

Not so great movie moments:

The movie was definitely made for the big screen, the action and explosions suffer greatly in the transition to a smaller screen, even so it’s still worth viewing.

Don’t get too mired into the details. The realism is a bit of a stretch so if you try to make too much sense of whether or not this is a realistic situation or the logistics, you might be very disappointed. It’s best to just enjoy this movie for the sake of non-stop action.

Details:

Director: Michael Bay

Rated R: Some violence in the form of explosions, a brief suggestive scene and language.

Run time: 136 minutes