The original: 

The Rock (1996)

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Directed by: 

Michael Bay (Bad Boys, Pain and Gain, Armageddon, The Ambulance)

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Starring: 

Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage, Ed Harris, David Morse, Tony Todd, John Spencer, Vanessa Marcil, Claire Forlani, with Michael Biehn  and Stanley Anderson as The President

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What’s it about? 

When a highly decorated, well-meaning but awkwardly misguided US Army General (Harris) takes control of ex-prison, now tourist-trap Alcatraz and holds the San Francisco Bay area hostage with really horrible nerve gas missiles, the government has but one option- send in decades long incarcerated, ex-British Secret Service agent John Mason (Connery) and bio-weaponry and Beatles expert Stanley Goodspeed (Cage) to free the hostages, stop the attack, and save the day. 

 

Littered with excellent quips, zingers and banter, and showing off rather sensational chemistry between Connery and Cage, not to mention an effective bait and switch with poor old Platoon leader Michael Biehn, The Rock keeps you on your toes (while sometimes shooting itself in the foot). 

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Yes, it’s not a perfect film, often feeling like ten films thrown together. 

It’s Bay! It’s Bruckheimer! It’s all over the place!  

And yes, it ultimately remains quite a mess… but what a glorious mess. 

 

Great action, wonderful characters and an antagonist who is thoughtful, sincere and with a genuinely excellent point. 

With heroes you love to root for, secondary villains who are hiss-worthy cretins of the highest order, and a meaty central premise, this is a stylish, exciting, funny and emotional adventure that single-handedly invented the term High Octane. 

 

So, embrace your inner super-freak, light the flares and jam that needle straight into your heart. 

It’s time to Rock. 

 

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John Mason- “Your ‘best’. Losers are always whining about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen.” 

Stanley Goodspeed- “Carla was the prom queen.” (cocks gun) 

 

 

General Hummel- "‘The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.’" Thomas Jefferson.” 

John Mason- “Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious," according to Oscar Wilde.” 

 

 

Stanley Goodspeed- “You've been around a lot of corpses. Is that normal?” 

John Mason- “What, the feet thing?” 

Stanley Goodspeed- “Yeah, the feet thing.” 

John Mason- Yeah, it happens.” 

Stanley Goodspeed- “Well I'm having a hard time concentrating. Can you do something about it?” 

John Mason- “Like what, kill him again?” 

 

 

Stanley Goodspeed- “Mason, you all right?” 

John Mason (hanging upside down)-“Yes. Perfectly okay, you fucking idiot.”