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List Price: $14.99 | | Label: Walt Disney Video
Salesrank: 4519
Released: December 3, 1997 |
| Our Price: $4.20 |
| Used Price: $2.62 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
A vengeful general and his highly trained commandos seize control of Alcatraz island and threaten San Francisco with rocket loaded with deadly gas unless the families of the men who've died under his command in covert missions are paid a million dollars a piece. Only two men can stop them.
Description of The Rock:
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
The Rock Reviews:
If the hair at back of your neck doesn't rise at least 10 times while watching this, you should seriously see a doctor 
2009-07-01 - This movie is so awesome I have trouble even saying it. One of the best action movies I've ever seen. Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage infiltrate Alcatraz as the whole city of San Francisco is taken hostage by Ed Harris and his group of mercenaries. Oh, and did I mention it has just about the greatest film score ever made as well? Go see at once. Highly recommended*****
The Rock
2009-02-16 - DVD was very entertaining.
DVD arrived in a very timely fashion.
DVD arrived in excellent condition.
Amazing 
2009-01-21 - I love this movie and my husband and I did not have the DVD so I purchased it. We both love it, how could you not?
Entertaining!
2008-08-30 - I don't like many Bay movies because he has very little skill in crafting a honest and detailed movie. Armageddon was a horrendous piece of donkey dung, everything that's wrong with Hollywood was detailed in that schlock! The Rock is a slightly different proposition, it's entertaining and never tries to be anything but! The story is thin and the dialogue is typically bad at times. The action is excellent and Sean Connery makes the movie work! The direction is very Mtv, the editing is silly at times - what's with the quick cuts? Why can't I enjoy the compositions? Pathetic! But still, the pace is consistent. The acting is okay, Connery's presence elevates the material. Ed Harris is always dependable and Cage is pretty funny as Goodspeed. The music is very patriotic and but fun. Overall, entertaining, switch your brain off! After this, Bay descended into familiar MTV garbage!
adventures on an island
2008-08-17 - This is a story of 2 men who come together from completely different backgrounds, where they meet in San Francisco - a city where anything's possible. Goodspeed, played by the ever lovable Nicholas Cage, is a doctor who knows a lot about chemicals - he's always talking about those chemicals, it's just his *thing*. His girlfriend is pregnant - and at the beginning of the film they plan to marry - but unforeseen circumstances bring him to the West Coast. Mason on the other hand, played by a stern and tough Sean Connery, is an old rugged man who is locked in his room reading books and philosophizing about life. "In another life," Mason admits in one scene, "I wish I were a poet or a farmer."
Against all likelihood, the men are united on a mission "to save a city", as one character puts it. After a number of transforming events, Goodspeed's intellectual prowess and his knowledge about chemicals uniquely compliments Mason's rougher edges. And despite Mason's shortcommings, he's very good at acting on instinct, a quality that Goodspeed lacks. It's an unlikely couple to say the least, but the 2 actors definitely have great chemistry.
They first meet in the streets of San Francisco in a dazzling scene that can only be described as riveting and heart-pounding. They roam through those streets as if they owned the city, and in their own particularly ways, they seem to wreak havoc wherever they go.
The plot begins to pick up when Goodspeed's job eventually takes him to a remote relatively isolated island off of the city's coast, where he is asked scour the island for those chemicals that he knows so much about, which are being used by some macho guys in their big rockets that they're flaunting at everyone. Despite being hesitant at first, Mason eventually decides to join Goodspeed on the island, where the two experience mishaps and mayhem wherever they go. Sparks and explosions light up as Goodspeed and Mason find out that they're not so different afterall. All the while, through a number of plot developments and twists, their excursions take them through underground hidden passageways and abandoned buildings and lighthouses, even SCUBA diving underwater - all in search of those chemicals that Goodspeed is so determined to find.
The screen lights up as they cross paths with other characters who have also situated themselves on the island - these include tourists, generals, and even a group of specially trained Marines.
There's a bittersweet happiness at the end, when the two characters must part. Mason needs to return to his life of annomity back in SF Bay where he also has an estranged daughter, while Goodspeed reunites with his fiance. Although nonetheless the guys have experienced intense life-changing events that will likely forever change their lives. Heart-thomping action, betrayal, loyalty, deceit, poetry, disguise, lots of action and lots of male-bonding, somehow they've all made it into this rather energetic film.
