‘The Rock’ Has a Lot of Balls – Mars’ Retro Roast
The Rock has a lot of balls – and not all of them are green and made of glass. Let’s check back in with this action classic!
Released this week in 1996. The Rock stars Nicolas Cage, Sean Connery, and Ed Harris. It is certainly a prime example of a ’90s-era big-budget action movie. It’s big, bombastic, and dumb if you think about it too hard. This movie has Bay and Jerry Bruckhiemer all over it – which could be good or bad depending on your taste.
Chemical warfare expert Stanley Goodspeed works for the FBI, and is usually a lab-dweller. This urgent mission will require him to team up with a former SAS operative that would rather be doing anything else. They’ve been tasked with stopping Gen. Francis X. Hummel from launching chemical weapons at San Francisco. They’ll have to break into Alcatraz Island to do it.
Our Generic Players
The Soldier – The Rock opens with a super-easy break into a NAVAL WEAPONS DEPOT. We quickly meet our bad guy and what his stolen goods can do. Hummel is willing to use this chemical weapon on the civilians of San Fransisco but sends a group of elementary school kids off the island so they won’t experience being hostages. His demands include paying death benefits to soldiers. He’s got a crappy moral compass and is a bit of a lunatic.
The Lab Rat – Our introduction to Goodspeed is panic and lightly profanity-filled. We learn that not only can he deal with sarin gas, but he can also disarm bombs, and he collects LPs. Oh, and he’s gonna have a kid with his girlfriend and he likes to play guitar naked (and she’s allowed to hang out at an FBI command center because). He’s a lab guy, not a field guy. He doesn’t really want to be a field guy. He deals with this with humor.
“The image of a naked man with a guitar and a glass of wine at home, to me seemed like a good image.” – Nic Cage
The Mysterious Uber-Experienced Guy – Mason is smart, capable, grumpy, and can’t sing. He can, however, break out of things and has a great accent.
via Hollywood Pictures
The Play
The appetizer is a car chase because Bay can’t not include one. He even makes car engine sounds while filming car chases. This one includes a Ferrari F355 Spider of questionable authenticity. It never explodes and somehow works after being jammed into third gear from ignition. Other things explode, a Ford Escort, a trolley car. But not the supercar that’s known for randomly blowing up. It manages to take out a row of parking meters without a dent while an H1 gets banged to hell. Ok, then. Moving on.
“Look, a Ferrari’s doing battle with a Humvee, you gotta watch that.” – Michael Bay
via Hollywood Pictures
All of the scenes at Alcatraz were shot on the island. Initially, the studio wanted them to do minimal shooting there and wrap it in LA. Bay did not agree, “I gotta shoot on this island because this island is so fucking bitchin’.” Yes, that’s a direct quote. So they did. Mostly.
The bulk of the action plays out on The Rock. SEALS led by Michael Bhien with Mason and Goodspeed on the good side, and Hummel and his Recon Marines on the bad side. Once the SEALS land, Mason leads the team through the bowels of the prison and into one of the shower rooms where they confront each other in the worst way possible. It’s a gauntlet. There is yelling about orders and patriotic sad music and lots of shrapnel. The SEAL team is quickly no more. That was fast and stupid.
Hummel’s morality holds after gunning down a SEAL team – his choices are not his, and nothing is his fault.
Pretty Green Balls of Death
Where the SEALS fail, the SAS operative and lab rat succeed. They take out a group of Marines and get to the first of the real nastiness. Here’s where Mysterious Uber-Experienced Guy gains respect for the Lab Rat. He may not be great with scuba gear, but he sure can talk about how these pretty green balls can kill you in a very painful manner.
After the pair take out several more of the missile guidance systems, Hummel decides to pull one of the tourist hostages out and stick a mic in his face. Hand over the chips and dude keeps his head. Mason and Goodspeed split up to distract Hummel and get the job done. Mason has a very honest chat with the general. Someone has to tell him that he’s an idiot and the whole plot of the movie is stupid, and it’s so much better in a Scottish accent.
via Hollywood Pictures
Glass or Plastic?
Back at the Pentagon, a missile strike has been called on Alcatraz because they can’t get a hold of anyone.
Hummel’s plan quickly falls apart when realizes the missiles are useless and he can’t work his way out of his idiotic bluff. His crew starts to turn against him (this was about money, not honor suddenly) and after some impassioned yelling he loses command. The lot decides words aren’t enough, so they shoot each other with their pistols because they’re angry men (ok, Mason and Goodspeed helped with a rifle from another room).
The last fight is juxtaposed with fighter jets on their way. Windows get broken by having bodies flung through them. Tony Todd becomes the rocket man. And Goodspeed uses a VX sphere to kill a Marine hellbent on unaliving him. Then he sparks some flares, falls in the ocean, Mason saves him, and it’s all ok. The folksy music tells us so.
More happens after that, but whatever.
via Hollywood Pictures
Does The Rock Hold Up?
“Seems like the way Hollywood’s going these days. We’re green-lighting movies before we have a fully-developed script.” – Michael Bay
Yes? It’s a dumb action movie, and always has been. David Weisberg and Douglas Cook wrote a boring, predictable story that lacks internal logic. What makes this a worthy rewatch are Cage and Connery, some memorable one liners, and the action sequences. It’s Michael Bay’s best (he initially turned it down) and one of the very few blockbuster movies in the Criterion Collection‘s catalog.
While the story is stupid, the actors and the action push it forward and make it watchable. The Rock is a ’90s action movie – it’s not, however, a think-piece.
Bay always wanted to do a sequel. He wanted to have the government go on a wild goose chase after Goodspeed and the microfilm, forcing him to ask Mason for help. Just watch National Treasure, it’s better this way.
