Hi,
I love movies and buy far too many DVDs every month, so most of my opinions will be about mov...
Hi,
I love movies and buy far too many DVDs every month, so most of my opinions will be about movies or DVDS.
I'll put a member profile picture up soon as I've got to find one as Ciao wont let me put my Silent Bob picture up.
Cheers
Chris
Member since:03.04.2001
Reviews:27
Members who trust:11
The title is part of what a very stereotypical gay male hairdresser says in the film, infact this is it in full :- I never saw you throw that gentleman off the balcony. All I care about is are you happy with your haircut.
General Hummel: Put the phone down. Major Baxter: I'm calling them Frank, I'm asking for more time. General Hummel: You're being asked by a friend. [Baxter continues.] General Hummel: You're being ordered by a superior officer! [Baxter carries on, Hummell draws.] General Hummel: Now you're being given your last chance by a man with a gun.
So ‘The Rock’ isn’t the most original movie in the world, in fact it lends parts off a lot of movies, but the real surprise is how well all these parts work in this film. How many other films would dare to bring back Sean Connery as a spy for Her Majesty’s Secret Service, but this time named John (Mason not Bond).
The story follows General Hummel (Ed Harris) as a highly decorated and respected officer in the US Army who has fought to get recognition for his fallen soldiers and compensation for their families. He doesn’t like the way that just because they were on covert missions when they died, the USA deny all knowledge of them, but up until now he has always failed in his quest so he decides to take a stronger stance now he feels he can after the death of his wife.
He gets a team of marines together and steals rockets loaded with VX gas from a marine holding base and then takes 81 tourists hostage on Alcatraz and then demands $100 Million to be paid into a bank account to be given to the families of his fallen soldiers. To try and stop this situation the FBI recruit Stanley Goodspeed (Nicolas Cage), a FBI scientist and chemical weapons expert, but to disarm the rockets they still need to get into Alcatraz, the prison no one could break out of, not to mention into.
So they need to get into Alcatraz, without Hummel and his team of marines seeing them, detecting their presence or finding out their plan. We then find out that someone did break out of Alcatraz once, John Mason, a spy for the British Government who was arrested in the 60’s for stealing sensitive material about the president of the USA and over high ranking people. He escaped in the 60’s but was recaptured and has spent his entire life in a maximum-security prison with both the British government and the USA denying any knowledge of him. Having been imprisoned unfairly without a trial he is not best happy with the government and is not very cooperative with them. But eventually he accepts to help the Government and himself; Goodspeed and a Navy SEALs team start off on a mission to get into to The Rock.
The Rock is the
prime example of the 90’s action movie, its fast and furious and full of quick edits and flash camera work but The Rock adds one feature to this – lots of blood. It also features one of the best car chases ever in a movie set in the streets of San Francisco starring a big Humvee and a bright yellow Ferrari. But it also follows down the path followed by most action films, a bad guy with a foreign sounding name – Hummel – sounds a bit German to me. But then he isn’t really the bad guy the film focuses on, the main bad guy here is, in fact, the US Government.
The casting is superb; you could not imagine any other actor in the parts that the cast here play. Each performance is so good that there is no stand out performance; each character is convincingly humourous and absolutely human. When Hummel is first raiding The Rock and taking the tourists hostage he tells the group of kids to get back on the boat, when he raids the base to get the rockets he makes his men use sleeping darts and stops one of his men killing one and finally we can tell he has no intention of firing the missiles into America and he hopes the Government will pay before he has to do so.
Mason is full of anger because of spending his life in prison, but he does know he has a daughter whom he would like to return to once the mission is complete. While Goodspeed is the nerdy, straightforward, honest guy who is very scared and just wants to do what is right. Connery and Cage make a fun and excellent couple, delivering some good dialogue and played with just the right sense of humour to make the film work. Also present and equally great are Tony Todd, David Morse and Michael Beihn (good to see them both in a big budget release). Rarely has a movie like this looked as finely-polished.
Sean Connery insisted the producers build a cabin for him on Alcatraz as he didn't want to travel from the mainland to the island every day; he got what he asked for. The film was also dedicated to Don Simpson who died during the filming, who was part of the Bruckheimer/Simpson team who made so many great action movies in the 80’s and 90’s.
While the first DVD release of The Rock was a very bare boned disk coming from the Disney household. This version had good sound and audio but was lacking in any form of extras and what with the superb Criterion laserdisc bobbing around we knew it could only be a matter of time. The Rock was also the movie that started Nicolas Cage on his journey to action star, following The Rock came Con Air and Face/Off, all three being superb examples of what an action film should be like.
Directed by Michael Bay, it was released in 1996 and was a box office smash around the world, it doesn’t have a great plot, but then what action film does, but what it does have is a succession string of great action set pieces and dialogue between Connery and Cage. Michael Bay is fast becoming the major player in Hollywood for action movies, starting with Bad Boys, moving on to The Rock and then Armageddon. Next to come is Pearl Harbour starring Ben Affleck and if you’ve seen the trailer you know it looks stunning, check out that scenes that tracks the Planes and then the bomb hitting the boat, truly amazing. There are some lovely shots here to, when the missile is fired and is heading for the Stadium only to be redirected into the ocean, that whole flight looks great. Also check out the great blood and gore shots when a couple of soldiers get melted by the VX Gas.
Buying the Criterion DVD of The Rock is a must for any UK fan because the film was cut by the BBFC, this was down to Connery being portrayed as the hero but using his violent talents to modern mode, here he throws knifes, snaps necks and blows off toes. The cuts are as followed:-
1. In what is a very cool scene when Goodspeed and Mason first enter the morgue, Mason throws a knife into a soldiers neck with blood spurting out everywhere followed by Mason stating “you must never hesitate”. This scene is totally missing fro the UK version. 2. Still in the morgue, Mason decides the best plan of action is to blows holes into the feet of a soldier, lots of blood and a couple of hits deleted. 3. The soldier with the missing toes gets a generator to the face from above; the zoom in shot of his is missing. 4. When Mason breaks a soldiers neck the snapping sound is missing from the UK release. 5. Finally the gun battle near the end has been trimmed for bloodletting when Major Baxter gets shot in the stomach and General Hummel received a hit to his left shoulder.
But the movies is not without its flaws, Mason escapes from the FBI in a chase through the streets of San Francisco, wreaking everything in sight but then lets himself be caught afterwards very easy. Mason agrees to go to The Rock but is never told why he is going until later on when Cage convinces him to stay. How come the tram is blown ot bits but is present in another scene later on totally OK. At the end Goodspeed puts a glass sphere in the pocket on his chest. We do not see any measures taken to prevent it from breaking. But in the fight afterward we clearly see Goodspeed land on his chest. The same glass later breaks quite easily in the mouth of the terrorist.
This disk has been treated to a new anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen transfer, it was created on a high definition Spirit Datacine and is enhanced for 16x9 TVs. The new transfer was mastered from the 35mm interpositive and the original magnetic audio tracks, the transfer was also approved by Michael Bay himself. The picture quality is completely stunning and is by far the best transfer I have ever seen on DVD, it has a completely new level of detail and clarity not found on the previous release of the disk. The colours are all-strong and never blur, there is no grain at all and considering a lot of the film take place in the dark or shadows towards the end the shadow detail is also amazing.
The audio quality is also the best I have ever heard, Criterion have taken the original magnetic audio tracks and provided us with a all new Dolby Digital 5.1 track. Of particular interest on this version is the inclusion of a new DTs 5.1 audio track. This has been newly created for this Criterion DVD. The score is by Hans Zimmer and is now one of my favourate scores of all time, it captures each scene superbly and sends across the right kind of vibe for each one.
Being a Criterion disk we always knew there was going to be a shed load of extras on the disk and really it’s just a port of their earlier Laserdisc edition. The first DVD contains the film, the various audio tracks and a full-length Screen Specific commentary by director Michael Bay, stars Nicolas Cage and Ed Harris, technical adviser Harry Humphries and producer Jerry Bruckheimer. In addition the DVD has some standard Colour Bars to set up your AV kit if required. The commentary is a very mixed bag and many topics and sides of film making are discussed, most of the major players in the film are present the only big absent is Connery, it also features Cage, Bruckheimer, and Bay doing most of the talking. It can come across as being a little dry but overall this is an informative and involving commentary that thankfully is also specifically tied into the on-screen action. It is particularly interesting listening to Nicolas Cage explain the differences in his standard roles versus his action scenes here. You do get the sense he was somewhat a reluctant action movie hero. The commentary also features a chapter Index enabling you to listen to specific chapters if required.
The second disk is named The Vault and contains all the other extras, The Jerry Bruckheimer Interview is an interesting piece with minimal information on his earlier films but quite extensive production information on The Rock. This piece runs to around 18 minutes. The next piece Navy Seals covers the training and mental preparation of this elite unit. Controversially this segment starts teaching Soldiers how to put down enemies with gunfire. If you've ever wanted to know where to shoot and why this is your Documentary. Whilst not strictly relevant to the film it does give some invaluable info like how Shower Room Scene would never have turned into a massacre.
Do's and Don'ts of Hollywood Gunplay covers the ways in which the Cinema today portrays actual gun fighting. Here Navy Seals discuss how and why these particular styles are not practical and how they teach actors to actually look good firing guns on screen. The Rock on Movie Magic is an excellent Behind The Scenes feature covering the special effects used throughout the film. Of particular interest are the digital enhancements made to the Tram Car explosion and the Aircraft attack.
The Dive Sequence covers the Navy Seals infiltration of The Rock. This is another high quality Making-Of documentary in terms of content covering how this scene was created and going into a lot of detail. The Publicity Section covers the films US theatrical trailer, TV spots, and the world premiere of The Rock which took place on Alcatraz.
The Stills Archive Section covers four main areas; storyboards for two of the key sequences, production design drawings, and a Production Stills. There is a significant number of images available in these archives covering all aspects of the design/production. The Outtakes Section is Michael Bay's comical selection of goofs and mistakes. Watch out for Ed Harris' extensive swearing and telephone brutality and Sean Connery's and Cage's outtake selections are hysterical, but all three point to the high pressure of filming a movie like this..
The only extra missing from the Laserdisc is Bay’s Got Milk TV advert.
The best DVD in my collection - no doubt, even lasting over 2 hours yo will never be bored.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
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I must seriously invest in a DVD player now..all your DVD movies are awesome! hope this gets PF rewards, ciao's equiv. to the dooyoo Crown!
pakalang 06.04.2001 03:58
another excellent dvd op.. but still under the wrong category. u should suggest this for a new product if you can't find it on the flims on dvd section.. come on, it's not as hard as it looks.. i love the rock and had the crap region 2 dvd(have swapped it) and now thinking of getting this criterion dvd as u mentioned.. i think again u didn't mentioned that the criterion is only available on region 1, rite? maybe i'm wrong, but it's up to u to inform this to the other consumers.. cheers :)
Apr 3rd, 2001
very helpful by (100%):
