The Rock by Michael Bay on W9 HD (CanalSat)
My rating: 9 out of 10 stars
A group of renegade marine commandos seizes a stockpile of chemical weapons and takes over Alcatraz, with 81 tourists as hostages. Their leader demands $100 million to be paid, as restitution to families of Marines who died in covert ops. Otherwise, he will launch 15 rockets carrying deadly VX gas into the San Francisco Bay area.
As far as I am concerned this is a great action/thriller movie. The fact that one of my all-time favorite actors, Sean Connery, plays in it is of course a good start. Despite Nicholas Cage having done quite a few crappy movies I still like him as well. At least when he plays in decent movies.
I first watched this movie sometime around when it came out. I did not watch it in a theater though so it must have been on VHS or TV. I thought it was a great movie already then. When I re-watched it yesterday on W9 HD I did not find any reason to change my opinion. I was surprised at how much action, especially the blowing-up-cars kind of action, there are in this movie though. I did not remember those parts but more of the stealth and breaking into Alcatraz parts. But then, considering that it had Michael Bay as director I guess this one have to be considered quite moderate in the blowing-things-up department after all.
The story is actually not too unbelievable and the bad guys are not so ridiculously freaked out as they are in many movies of this type. Sean Connery is great as always but the acting in general is of high standard throughout the movie. The dialogue between him and Nicholas Cage as well as other people in the movie is definitely entertaining. The action, as I have already partly mentioned, is great and not too overdone either.
It is an action/thriller movie though (maybe with some more emphasis on action than thriller) so do not expect to be intellectually stimulated. The movie is meant to entertain and that it does with flying colors. Despite it being 136 minutes long it certainly did not feel too long. Actually I do not know why this movie is not in my DVD/BD collection. I think I will get it even though I have just seen it on TV.
PG's Ramblings 