General Francis Hummel (Ed Harris), angered by the government’s refusal to acknowledge the sacrifices the men under his command have made while on covert black-ops missions, assembles a team of Marines and seizes control of Alcatraz, threatening to launch a biological weapons attack on San Francisco unless his demands are met.

A SEAL team is dispatched to take down Hummel and his men, but they’ll need some help finding passage into the former prison and neutralizing Hummel’s weapons, so they bring along a pair of experts: Stanley Goodspeed (Nicolas Cage), a geeky scientist from the FBI’s Biochemical labs in Washington, and John Mason (Sean Connery), a British national who was the only person to successfully escape from Alcatraz.

CRITIQUE

Well look here, it’s the one Michael Bay movie generally enjoyed by people loathe to admit they actually enjoy a Michael Bay movie (which means there’s a very good chance your mind is already made up). Speaking as a fan of Bay’s brand of mindless mayhem (except Pearl Harbor, which is pretty awful no matter how you cut it), I don’t see why non-fans latch onto The Rock. It’s just as noisy and dumb as the rest of the director’s oeuvre.

Plot and character take a backseat to action and destruction, and Bay’s ADD-afflicted directorial style is certainly on display here, so what is it about The Rock that warrants it a pass? I’m not sure, but I think it may have something to do with the fact that it was made before it became fashionable to hate Bay.

In fact, many people who later knocked Bay’s stylistic choices spoke favorably of such choices when this movie was originally released in the summer of 1996 (just compare reviews of this movie to those of Armageddon and you’ll see what I mean). But I don’t care; I still enjoy the hell out of this movie. Hey, I never questioned why Criterion deemed it fit to receive their stamp of approval, so there you go.

Watching The Rock for the umpteenth time, I started thinking about the approach of a movie such as Crank and Shoot ‘Em Up, where the nonstop action and stupidity is used as some sort of badge of honor, as if it’s okay to do nothing more than blow up stuff real good for ninety minutes if you admit upfront that you’re out to do nothing more than blow stuff up real good for ninety minutes. But I don’t think anyone involved in The Rock had any pretensions about what they were making.

This is mindless entertainment, plain and simple. But it’s stylish, energetic, extremely entertaining mindless entertainment, which isn’t the case when it comes to Crank and Shoot ‘Em Up. Those movies attempt to cover up their lack of style by being relentless, whereas The Rock is both stylish and relentless.

After all, this is a movie that stages a massive car chase simply to move one character from Point A to Point B. There are a million possible ways to get Mason out of that hotel, but Bay does it by wrecking half of San Francisco with a Humvee, a battalion of cop cars, a Ferrari, and a streetcar. And not only does he give us the old standby of the little old lady with a bag of groceries who wanders into the street and almost gets creamed, Bay also throws in the participants in a wheelchair race, a move that gleefully pushes the scene beyond the ridiculous.

Call me crazy, but something this absurd staged with this much skill is fine by me. The same goes for the mine car sequence. Why the hell would a prison have a mine car system in its bowels? Beats me, and the movie wisely doesn’t even bother to offer up an explanation. Doesn’t matter, though (you either accept it or you don’t), nor does it matter that all of those SEALs serve no real purpose, nor does it matter that Cage only takes a cursory glance at the Alcatraz blueprints yet somehow develops a flawless familiarity with the facility’s layout.

None of this matters; The Rock is fast, fun, and very funny (thanks in no small part to the dialogue, much of which was contributed without credit by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, who were brought in by executive producer Connery, for whom they performed similar services on Never Say Never Again), and that’s all that matters.

THE VIDEO

Aside from a tiny bit of edge enhancement and some digital noise (problems that have plagued every DVD incarnation of the movie), the 2.35:1/1080p transfer is a knockout. I was constantly amazed at just how fantastic it looks. Blacks are rock-solid, colors are staggeringly bold and vivid (check out that Ferrari), and detail is exemplary. Contrast is more natural than in Bay’s last three movies, so depth in the image remains stable throughout, imparting the transfer with a consistently three-dimensional, film-like appearance.

THE AUDIO

The uncompressed PCM 5.1 audio is everything you could hope it would be. It’s loud, noisy, and completely immersive. The action scenes (read: practically the entire movie) are exceptionally lively, with the entire soundstage employed to create seamless bombast and chaos. The low ends pushes incredibly deep; the two missile launches provide some of the most thunderous bass action I’ve ever heard. Dialogue is always crystal clear. English, French, and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks are also included. English SDH, French, and Spanish subtitles are available.

THE EXTRAS

With the exception of the photo galleries, all of the extras from 2001’s 2-disc Criterion release are included here.

The commentary by director Michael Bay, producer Jerry Bruckheimer, actors Nicolas Cage and Ed Harris, and technical adviser Harry Humphries is one of those old pieced-together Criterion tracks. Bay, one of the few directors you can always count on to supply good commentary, dominates the track, providing interesting comments regarding both the scripting and the physical shoot.

The Rock World Premiere (2 minutes) is some worthless footage from the movie’s premiere screening.

Navy SEALs on the Range (6 minutes) contains interviews with real-life Navy SEALs, who discuss the liberties the movie takes with SEAL tactics.

Hollywood: Humphries & Teague (6 minutes) features interviews with technical adviser Harry Humphries and actor Marshall Teague (who plays one of the SEALs), who discuss the extensive weapons training the cast underwent. 

Special Effects for Dive (8 minutes) examines the visual effects used during the sequence in which the SEAL team infiltrates the island.

Action Effects: Movie Magic (8 minutes) looks at the CG and practical effects from the streetcar crash and F-18 attack sequences.

A series of outtakes (9 minutes) offers up the usual flubbed lines and missed cues. (This is one of the rare occasions where I’ve enjoyed this sort of feature, as hearing Harris swear like Nixon whenever he screws up a line is great fun.)

Secrets of Alcatraz (15 minutes) provides a brief history of the facility, covering its time as a prison and a tourist attraction.

The Jerry Bruckheimer Interview (16 minutes) is self-explanatory. The producer (whose former producing partner Don Simpson went out like Elvis a few months before the movie premiered and to whom the movie is dedicated) discusses his career in general and how he came to be involved with The Rock.

Closing out the extras is a selection of theatrical trailers and TV spots.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The Rock sets out to provide 136 minutes of escapist entertainment, a goal it handily achieves. This Blu-ray disc makes the movie look and sound better than it ever has, earning it an easy recommendation. Now bring on Armageddon!