The Rock

Story

Between his high-octane debut, Bad Boys, and 1998's wannabe blockbuster Armageddon, hotshot director Michael Bay forged his dubious reputation with this crowd-pleasing action extravaganza. In it a psychotically disgruntled war hero (Ed Harris) seizes the island prison of Alcatraz and threatens to wage chemical warfare against nearby San Francisco unless the government publicly recognizes the men who were killed under Harris's top-secret command. Nicolas Cage plays the biochemist who teams up with the only man ever to have escaped from Alcatraz (Sean Connery) in an attempt to foil Harris's terrorist scheme. As one might expect, what follows is an action-packed barrage of bullets, bodies, and climactic confrontations, replete with enough plot contrivances to give even the most jaded action fan cause for alarm. It's a load of hooey, but the cast is obviously having a grand old time, and there's enough wit to make the recycled action sequences tolerable. If you're ordering this movie on DVD, be careful with the volume knobs on your home-theater sound systems, because The Rock could cause partial hearing loss and structural damage to your home. --Jeff Shannon

DVD Features

• Color
• Closed-captioned
• Dolby
• Widescreen

Cast

Sean Connery	John Patrick Mason
Nicolas Cage	Dr. Stanley Goodspeed
Ed Harris	Brigadier General Francis X. Hummel
John Spencer	FBI Director James Womack
David Morse	Major Tom Baxter
William Forsythe	Special Agent Ernest Paxton
Michael Biehn	Commander Charles Anderson
Vanessa Marcil	Carla Pestalozzi
John C. McGinley	Marine Captain Hendrix
Gregory Sporleder	Captain Frye
Tony Todd	Captain Darrow
Bokeem Woodbine	Sergeant Crisp
Jim Maniaci	Private Scarpetti
Greg Collins	Private Gamble
Brendan Kelly	Private Cox
Steve Harris	Private McCoy
Danny Nucci	Lieutenant Shephard
Claire Forlani	Jade Angelou
Celeste Weaver	Sracy Richards
Todd Louiso	Marvin Isherwood