The Rock (1996) Movie | Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage, Ed Harris & Michael Biehn | Review & Facts

[Music] e e e e e hey guys welcome back to the picture review Channel guys in today's video the movie we are going to talk about is called The Rock we will talk about what this movie is all the interesting facts about this movie we are going to give you a detailed review of this movie and we will talk in detail about the technical department music department pre-production filming and other details of this film we will also talk about the story of this film apart from this we will discuss about the facts of this film storyline starcast actor's performance in the film and which character has played which role that's why I request you friends to watch this video till the end if you are visiting our channel for the first time don't forget to subscribe to our channel so let's start the video the rock is a 1996 American action thriller film directed by Michael Bay produced by Don Simpson and Jerry brookheimer and written by David Weisberg Douglas es cook and Mark Rosner it stars Sean con hory Nicholas Cage and Ed Harris with supporting roles played by Michael Bean William fory David Morse and John Spencer in the film The Pentagon assigns a team comprising an FBI chemist and a former SAS Captain with a team of seals to break into Alcatraz where a rogue General and a rogue group of force Recon Marines have seized all the tourists on the island and have threatened to launch rockets filled with nerve gas upon San Francisco unless the US government pays $100 million to the next of kin of 83 men who were killed on missions that the general led and that the Pentagon denied The Rock was dedicated to the memory of Simpson who died 5 months before its release the film was released by buav Vista pictures Distribution on on June 7th 1996 it received positive reviews from critics and was nominated for best sound at the 69th Academy Awards it was also a financial success earning box office receipts of over $335 million against a production budget of $75 million and became the fourth highest grossing film of 1996 it was remade in India as kiamat city under threat plot disillusioned us Brigadier General Francis hmel and his second in command Major Tom Baxter lead a group of Rogue Force Recon Marines in stealing 15 m55 Rockets filled with VX poison gas a potent chemical weapon capable of killing any living organism in seconds the next day Hummel and his men seize control of alcatra Island taking the tourists and guards hostage he threatens to launch the rockets at San Francisco unless the US government pays him a 100 million from a covert slush fund which he will distribute to his men and the families of the Marines who died on Covert missions under his command but whose sacrifices were not compensated honored or acknowledged the Department of Defense and the FBI plots retake the island using a US Navy sealed team led by Commander Anderson FBI chemical weapons specialist Dr Stanley Goodspeed an elderly British former SAS Captain John Mason the only man to escape Alcatraz Mason has been imprisoned for three decades disavowed by the British government and his existence concealed by the FBI FBI director James wilmack deceives Mason with the offer of a pardon and acquiesces to his request to move to a hotel from which Mason escapes after Mason leads the FBI on a destructive car chase through San Francisco good speed finds him meeting with his estranged daughter Jade as the FBI arrives Mason expresses his regret to her for not being in her life at the mission Command Center Mason negotiates to join the team on Alcatraz while Goodspeed fails to convince his pregnant girlfriend Carla not to travel to San Francisco the team infiltrates Alcatraz but Hummel's men are alerted to their presence and Ambush them in a shower room Hummel tries to convince Anderson to surrender but his new allies captains Darrow and Fry deliberately cause a shootout which kills Anderson's team except for Mason and Goodspeed Who Remain undetected believing the mission of failure Mason prepares to leave until good speed reveals the truth about the VX which also threatens Jade Mason and Goodspeed work together to disable 12 rockets and kill several Marines after Hummel threatens to execute a hostage Mason surrenders to stall him while Goodspeed disables another rocket before also being captured after Mason freeze himself and Goodspeed he reveals that he was an MI6 operative tasked with stealing a micr film created by J Edgar Hoover containing secrets of high-profile Global figures and classified us information including the Roswell incident Mason refused to reveal the micr film's location after being captured knowing he would be killed and was imprisoned without trial having assessed homel as an honorable soldier who will not kill Innocents Mason leaves but returns to save a captured Goods speed not wanting his child to grow up without a father the ransome deadline passes leading Darrow and Fry to pressure hmel into firing rocket but he redirects it to detonate harmlessly in the sea Hummel explains the Rockets were a bluff and he never intended to kill anyone declaring the mission over realizing they will not be paid Darrow and Fry kill Baxter and mortally wound Hummel who tells good speed the location of the last rocket before dying meanwhile an air strike strike is initiated to blanket Alcatraz with experimental thermite plasma bombs which will neutralize the gas and incinerate everyone on the island good speed and Mason kill the remaining Marines including Darrow and Fry before signaling to abort the attack but not before one plane drops its bombs the blast throws good speed into the bay but Mason saves him good speed remot Ely confirms the mission's success but claims that Mason was vaporized in the blast the pair part weighs amicably after Mason recommends Goodspeed visit a church in Fort Walton Kansas sometime later the now married Goodspeed and Carla hastily drive away from the church after recovering the microfilm Goodspeed asks Carla if she wants to know who really killed JFK cast Shan connory as Captain retired John Patrick Mason SAS MI6 Nicholas Cage as Dr Stanley Goodspeed FBI Ed Harris as general Francis X homo USMC Michael Bean as Commander Charles Anderson usn William fory as Ernest Paxton FBI David Morris as Major Tom Baxter USMC John Spencer as FBI director James wac John C McGinley as Captain Hendrick USMC box office for its opening weekend the film gross $25 million beating out mission impossible to reach the number one spot it would be overtaken by the cable guide during its second weekend produced on a $75 million budget The Rock gross a total of$ 134 million in the US and Canada and $21 million Elsewhere for a worldwide total of 335 million it was the seventh highest grossing film for the US box office in 1996 and the fourth highest grossing US Film worldwide that year critical response on Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 67% based on 72 reviews with an average rating of 6.6 con10 the website's critics consensus reads for visceral Thrills that can't be beat just don't expect the rock to engage your brain on Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 58 out of 100 based on 24 critics indicating mixed or average reviews Audi audiences pulled by Cinema score gave the film an average grade of a on an A+ to f scale the rock is a First Rate slam bang action thriller with a lot of style and no little humor it's made out of pieces of other movies yes and not much in it is really new but each element has been lovingly polished to a gloss and there are three skillful performances Shan connory is Mason an intelligence expert who's been in prison for 30 years Nicholas Cage is goodp an FBI scientist and Ed Harris is Jenner hmel a war hero with a mad scheme to wage chemical warfare against San Francisco the plot Hook is a mission to break into Alcatraz Harris and his men have occupied the former prison island taken civilian hostages and threaten to fire deadly rockets at San Francisco unless their demands are met what are the demands HL who has three purple hearts two silver stars and the Medal of Honor is angered that 83 men have died under his command and never been recognized because they were on secret missions that the government denied even existed he wants $100 million in payments to their next up [Music] kin Hummel is known and respected in Washington and his demands are taken seriously a news blackout is imposed while the Pentagon assembles a team to break into Alcatraz and neutralize the poison gas missiles we've already seen good speed think fast while sealed in an airtight chamber with a deadly chemical bomb now he's assigned to join the task force even though he's basically a lab rat with minimal field or combat experience another key member of the team is Mason a British spy who we learn successfully stole all of J Edgar Hoover's secret files even the truth about JFK's assassination before being secretly jailed for life without a trial Mason's qualification he is a jailbreaking expert who is the only man ever to escape success fully from Alcatraz movies like The Rock progress from one action sequence to another sometimes it doesn't even matter much how they fit together consider for example the highly entertaining way in which Mason turns a haircut into an opportunity to dangle one of his old enemies by a cord from a top floor of a hotel in the way that leads to a San Francisco street car chase inspired by Bullet leading to a crash almost as Sensational as the train crash in The Fugitive strange isn't it that after going to all that trouble to escape Mason allows himself to be recaptured almost passively probably because unless he joins the team there's no movie strange to too that although it has time for unlimited action The Rock never slows down enough for a scene you might have thought was obligatory in which Mason has the plan explained to him along with a pitch about why he should go along he has a motive all right his only child is in San Francisco and could be one of the poison victims it's just that the movie Never quite bothers at this stage to tell him formally about the poison the break into Alcatraz owes something to Don seagull's Escape from Alcatraz the 1979 Clint Eastwood movie while that one negotiated the Maze of tunnels under Alcatraz in murky Darkness however the rock provides Alcatraz with a Subterranean Labyrinth as large and well- lit as the sewers in the third man and as crammed with props and unidentified metallic Machinery as the Alien movies the plot moves efficiently between firefights explosions Torrens of water hand-to-hand combat interrogation torture imprisonment escape and scientific mumbo jumbo as the infiltrators try to stop Harris's men from wiping out 70,000 San franciscans and the Pentagon prepares to firebomb the island with plain loads of thermite plasma which sure sounds neat all of these elements are standard issue for action thrillers but the script adds some deaf touches asked if he knows why he has been released from prison connory Riley said I've been locked up longer than Nelson Mandela maybe you want me to run for president what really works is the chemistry between connory as a reluctant Warrior who has all the skills necessary to outsmart and outfight the occupying force and cage as the nerd who can disarm the Rockets but is not much in The Killing department and then there is an intriguing complexity added to the Ed Harris character who is not as one-dimensional as he seems early in the film he advises some small children touring Alcatraz to return to their tour booat there are some loose ends cage and connory keep turning up dry when they should be wet a White House Aid gently says we need a decision Mr President after the deadline has passed and gets a speech so long it could have cost the 70,000 lives and of course the heroes are allowed to Eaves drop as needed on any conversations containing information they need to know in a movie that borrows from all the movies I've already listed plus secondhand filing from die hard and related epics there are two particularly obvious steals the old hypodermic needle plunging Into the Heart trick from Quenton Tarantino's Pulp Fiction and the Mexican standoff in which everybody has a gun pulled on everyone else from qt's Reservoir Dogs and true r romance courtesy of old westerns two lifts from Tarantino maybe the producers Jerry breimer and the late Don Simpson were getting their revenge for the famous Tarantino monologue in sleep with me where he analyze their Top Gun as a homosexual Parable no matter director Michael Bay Bad Boys orchestrates the elements into an efficient and exciting movie with some big laughs Sensational special effect sequences and sustained suspense and it's interesting to see how good actors like connory cage and Harris can find a way to occupy the center of this Whirlwind with characters who somehow manage to be quirky and convincing there are several identic Hollywood action stars who can occupy the center of chaos like this but not many can make it look like they think they're really there watching The Rock you really care about what happens you feel silly later for having been sucked in but that's part of the ride the rock is a 1996 American action thriller film directed by Michael Bay produced by Don Simpson and Jerry brookheimer and written by David Weisberg Douglas es cook and Mark Rosner it stars Shan connory Nicholas Cage and Ed Harris with supporting roles played by Michael Bean William foresight David Morse and John Spencer in the film The Pentagon assigns a team comprising an FBI chemist and a former SAS Captain with a team of seals to break into alcatra where a rogue General and a rogue group of force Recon Marines have seized Ed all the tourists on the island and have threatened to launch rockets filled with nerve gas upon San Francisco unless the US government pays $100 million to the next of kin of 83 men who were killed on missions that the general led and that the Pentagon denied The Rock was dedicated to the memory of Simpson who died 5 months before its release the film was released by buen a Vista picture Distribution on June 7th 1996 it received positive reviews from critics and was nominated for best sound at the 69th Academy Awards it was also a financial success earning box office receips of over $335 million against a production budget of $75 million and became the fourth highest grossing film of 1996 it was remade in India as kiamat city under threat plot disillusioned us Brigadier General Francis hmel and his second in command Major Tom Baxter lead a group of Rogue Force Recon Marines in stealing 15 m55 Rockets filled with VX poison gas a potent chemical weapon capable of killing any living organism in seconds the next day Hummel and his men seize control of alcatra Island taking the tourists and guards hostage he threatens to launch the rockets at San Francisco unless the US government pays him a 100 million from a covert slush fund which he will distribute to his men and the families of the Marines who died on Covert missions under his command but whose sacrifices were not compensated honored or acknowledged the Department of Defense and the FBI plots retake the island using a US Navy SEAL team led by Commander Anderson FBI chemical weapons specialist Dr Stanley Goodspeed and elderly British former SAS Captain John Mason the only man to escape Alcatraz Mason has been imprisoned for three decades disavowed by the British government and his existence concealed by the FBI FBI director James wac deceives Mason with the offer of a pardon and acquiesces to his request to move to a hotel from which Mason escapes after Mason leads the FBI on a destructive car chase through San Francisco good speed finds him meeting with his estranged daughter Jade as the FBI arrives Mason expresses his regret to her for not being in her life at the mission Command Center Mason negotiates to join the team on Alcatraz while Goodspeed fails to convince his pregnant girlfriend Carla not to travel to San Francisco the team infiltrates Alcatraz but Hummel's men are alerted to their presence and Ambush them in a shower room Hummel tries to convince Anderson to surrender but his new allies captains Darrow and Fry deliberately cause a shootout which kills Anderson's team except for Mason and Goodspeed Who Remain undetected believing the mission of failure Mason prepares to leave until good speed reveals the truth about the VX which also threatens Jade Mason and Goodspeed work together to disable 12 rockets and kill several Marines after hmel threatens to execute a hostage Mason surrenders to stall him while Goodspeed disables another rocket before also being captured after Mason frees himself and goods speed he reveals that he was an MI6 operative tasked with stealing a micro film created by J Edgar Hoover containing secrets of high-profile Global figures and classified us information including the Roswell incident Mason refused to reveal the micr film's location after being captured knowing he would be killed and was imprisoned without trial having assessed homl as an honorable soldier who will not kill Innocents Mason leaves but returns to save a captured Goods speed not wanting his child to grow up without a father The Ransom deadline passes leading Darrow and Fry to pressure hum into firing a rocket but he redirects it to detonate harmlessly in the sea hmel explains the Rockets were a bluff and he never intended to kill anyone declaring the mission over realizing they will not be paid Darrow and Fry kill Baxter and mortally wound hmel who tells goodeed the location of the last rocket before dying meanwhile an air strike is initiated to blanket Alcatraz with experimental thermite plasma bombs which will neutralize the gas and incinerate everyone on the island good speed and Mason kill the remaining Marines including Darrow and Fry before signaling to abort the attack but not before one plane drops its bombs the blast throws good speed into the bay but Mason saves him good speed remotely confirms the mission's success but claims that Mason was vaporized in the blast the pair part weighs amicably after Mason recommends good speed visit a church in Fort Walton Kansas sometime later the now married Goodspeed and Carla hastily drive away from the church after recovering the microfilm goodp speed asks Carla if she wants to know who really killed JFK cast Shan connory as Captain retired John Patrick Mason SAS MI6 Nicholas Cage as Dr Stanley Goodspeed FBI Ed Harris as general Francis X homo USMC Michael Bean as Commander Charles Anderson usn William foresy as Ernest Paxton FBI David Morris as Major Tom Baxter USMC John Spencer as FBI director James wac John C McGinley as Captain Hendrick USMC box office for its opening weekend the film gross $25 million beating out mission impossible to reach the number one spot it would be overtaken by the Cable Guy during its second weekend produced on a $75 million budget The Rock gross a total of 134 million in the US and Canada and $21 million Elsewhere for a worldwide total of $335 million it was the seventh highest grossing film for the US box office in 1996 and the fourth highest grossing US Film worldwide that year critical response on Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 67% based on 72 reviews with an average rating of 6.61 the website's critics consensus reads for visceral Thrills it can't be beat just don't expect the rock to engage your brain on Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 58 out of 100 based on 24 critics indicating mixed or average reviews audiences pulled by Cinema score gave the film an average grade of a on an A+ to f scale the rock is a First Rate slam bang action thriller with a lot of style and no little humor it's made out of pieces of other movies yes and not much in it is really new but each element has been lovingly polished to a gloss and there are three skillful performan es Sean connory is Mason an intelligence expert who's been in prison for 30 years Nicholas Cage is Goodspeed an FBI scientist and Ed Harris is Jenner hmel a war hero with a mad scheme to wage chemical warfare against San Francisco the plot Hook is a mission to break into Alcatraz Harris and his men have occupied the former prison island taken civilian in hostages and threaten to fire deadly rockets at San Francisco unless their demands are met what are the demands huml who has three purple hearts two silver stars and the Medal of Honor is angered that 83 men have died under his command and never been recognized because they were on secret missions that the government denied even existed he wants $100 million in payments to their next ofkin Hummel is known and respected in Washington and his demands are taken seriously a news blackout is imposed while the Pentagon assembles a team to break into Alcatraz and neutralize the poison gas missiles we've already seen Goodspeed think fast while sealed in an airtight chamber with a deadly chemical bomb now he's assigned to join the task force even though he's basically a lab rat with minimal field or combat experience another key member of the team is Mason a British spy who we learn successfully stole all of J Edgar Hoover's secret files even the truth about JFK's assassination before being secretly jailed for life without a trial Mason's qualification he is a jailbreak expert who is the only man ever to escape success fully from Alcatraz movies like The Rock progress from one action sequence to another sometimes it doesn't even matter much how they fit together consider for example the highly entertaining way in which Mason turns a haircut into an opportunity to dangle one of his old enemies by a cord from a top floor of a [Music] hotel in the way that leads to a San Francisco street car chase inspired by Bullet leading to a crash almost as Sensational as the train crash in The Fugitive strange isn't it that after going to all that trouble to escape Mason allows himself to be recaptured almost passively probably because unless he joins the team there's no movie strange too that although it has time for unlimited action The Rock never slows down enough for a scene you might have thought was obligatory in which Mason has the plan explained to him along with a pitch about why he should go along he has a motive all right his only child is in San Francisco and could be one of the poison victims it's just that the movie Never quite bothers at this stage to tell tell him formally about the poison the break into Alcatraz owes something to Don seagull's Escape from Alcatraz the 1979 Clint Eastwood movie while that one negotiated the Maze of tunnels under Alcatraz in murky Darkness however the rock provides Alcatraz with a Subterranean Labyrinth as large and well-lit as the sewers in the third man and as crammed with props and unidentified metallic Machinery as the Alien movies the plot moves efficiently between firefights explosions Torrens of water hand-to-hand combat interrogation torture imprisonment escape and scientific mumbo jumbo as the infiltrators try to stop Harris's men from wiping out 70,000 San franciscans and the Pentagon prepares to firebomb the island with plain loads of thermite plasma which sure sounds neat all of these elements are standard issue for action thrillers but the script adds some deaf touches asked if he knows why he has been released from prison connory Riley said I've been locked up longer than Nelson Mandela maybe you want me to run for president what really works is the chemistry between connory as a reluctant Warrior who has all the skills necessary to outsmart and outfight the occupying force and cage as the nerd who can disarm the Rockets but is not much in The Killing department and then there is an intriguing complexity added to the Ed Harris character who is not as one-dimensional as he seems early in the film he advises some small children touring alcatra to return to their tour booat there are some loose ends cage and connory keep turning up dry when they should be wet a White House Aid gently says we need a decision Mr President after the deadline has passed and gets a speech so long it could have cost the 70,000 lives and of course the heroes are allowed to EES drop as needed on any conversations containing information they need to know in a movie that borrows from all the movies I've already listed plus secondhand filing from die hard and related epics there are two particularly obvious steals the old hypodermic needle plunging Into the Heart trick from Quenton Tarantino's Pulp Fiction and the Mexican standoff in which everybody has a gun pulled on everyone else from qt's Reservoir Dogs and True Romance courtesy of old westerns two lifts from Tarantino maybe the producers Jerry brookheimer and the late Don Simpson were getting their revenge for the famous Tarantino monologue in sleep with me where he analyzed their Top Gun as a homosexual [Music] Parable no matter director Michael Bay Bad Boys orchestrates the elements into an efficient and exciting movie with some big laughs Sensational special effect sequences and sustained suspense and it's interesting to see how good actors like connory cage and Harris can find a way to occupy the center of this Whirlwind with characters who somehow manage to be quirky and convincing there are several identic Hollywood action stars who can occupy the center of chaos like this but not many can make it look like they think they're really there watching The Rock you really care about what happens you feel silly later for having been sucked in but that's part of the ride the rock is a 1996 American action thriller film directed by Michael Bay produced by Don Simpson and Jerry brookheimer and written by David Weisberg Douglas es cook and Mark Rob it stars Shan connory Nicholas Cage and Ed Harris with supporting roles played by Michael Bean William fory David moris and John Spencer in the film The Pentagon assigns a team comprising an FBI chemist and a former SAS Captain with a team of seals to break into Alcatraz where a rogue General and a rogue group of force Recon Marines have seized all the tourists on the island and have threatened to launch rockets filled with nerve gas upon San Francisco unless the US government pays $100 million to the next of kin of 83 men who were killed on missions that the general led and that the Pentagon denied The Rock was dedicated to the memory of Simpson who died 5 months before its release the film was released by buav Vista pictures Distribution on June 7th 1996 it received positive reviews from critics and was nominated for best sound at the 69th Academy Awards it was also a financial success earning box office receipts of over $335 million against a production budget of $75 million and became the fourth highest grossing film of 1996 it was remade in India as kiamat city under threat plot disillusioned us Brigadier General Francis hmel and his second in command Major Tom Baxter lead a group of Rogue Force Recon Marines and stealing 15 m55 Rockets filled with VX poison gas a potent chemical weapon capable of killing any living organism in seconds the next day Hummel and his men seize control of alcatra Island taking the tourists and guards hostage he threatens to launch the rockets at San Francisco unless the US government pays him a 100 million from a covert slush fund which he will distribute to his men and the families of the Marines who died on Covert missions under his command but whose sacrifices were not compensated honored or acknowledged the Department of Defense and the FBI plot spots retake the island using a US Navy sealed team led by Commander Anderson FBI chemical weapons specialist Dr Stanley Goodspeed and elderly British former SAS Captain John Mason the only man to escape Alcatraz Mason has been imprisoned for three decades disavowed by the British government and his existence concealed by the FBI FBI director James Wiman deceives Mason with the offer of a pardon and acquiesces to his request to move to a hotel from which Mason escapes after Mason leads the FBI on a destructive car chase through San Francisco good speed finds him meeting with his estranged daughter Jade as the FBI arrives Mason expresses his regret to her for not being in her life at the mission Command Center Center Mason negotiates to join the team on Alcatraz while Goodspeed fails to convince his pregnant girlfriend Carla not to travel to San Francisco the team infiltrates Alcatraz but Hummel's men are alerted to their presence and Ambush them in a shower room Hummel tries to convince Anderson to surrender but his new allies captains Darrow and and Fry deliberately cause a shootout which kills Anderson's team except for Mason and Goodspeed Who Remain undetected believing the mission of failure Mason prepares to leave until good speed reveals the truth about the VX which also threatens Jade Mason and Goodspeed work together to disable 12 rockets and kill several Marines after Hummel threatens to execute a hostile Mason surrenders to stall him while Goodspeed disables another rocket before also being captured after Mason frees himself and goods speed he reveals that he was an MI6 operative tasked with stealing a micro film created by J Edgar Hoover containing secrets of high-profile Global figures and classified us information including the Roswell incident Mason refused to reveal the micr film's location after being captured knowing he would be killed and was imprisoned without trial having assessed homl as an honorable soldier who will not kill Innocents Mason leaves but returns to save a captured Goods speed not wanting his child to grow up without a father The Ransom deadline passes leading Darrow and Fry to pressure hmel into firing a rocket but he redirects it to detonate harmlessly in the sea hmel explains the Rockets were a bluff and he never intended to kill anyone declaring the mission over realizing they will not be paid Darrow and Fry kill Baxter and mortally wound hmel who tells Goodspeed the location of the last rocket before dying meanwhile an air strike is initiated to blanket Alcatraz with experimental thermite plasma bombs which will neutralize the gas and incinerate everyone on the island good speed and Mason kill the remaining Marines including Darrow and Fry before signaling to abort the attack but not before one plane drops its bombs the blast throws good speed into the bay but Mason saves him good speed remotely confirms the mission's success but claims that Mason was vaporized in the blast the pair part weighs amicably after Mason recommends good speed visit a church in Fort Walton Kansas sometime later the now married Goodspeed and Carla hastily drive away from the church after recovering the microfilm goodp speed asks Carla if she wants to know who really killed JF FK cast Shan connory as Captain retired John Patrick Mason SAS MI6 Nicholas Cage as Dr Stanley Goodspeed FBI Ed Harris as general Francis X homo USMC Michael Bean as Commander Charles Anderson usn William foresight as Ernest Paxton FBI David moris as Major Tom Baxter USMC John Spencer as FBI director James wac John C McGinley as Captain Hendrick USMC box office for its opening weekend the film gross $25 million beating out mission impossible to reach the number one spot it would be overtaken by the Cable Guy during its second weekend produced on a $75 million budget The Rock grossed a total of 134 million in the US and Canada and $21 million Elsewhere for a worldwide total of $335 million it was the seventh highest grossing film for the US box office in 1996 and the fourth highest grossing US Film worldwide that year critical response mons on Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 67% based on 72 reviews with an average rating of 6.6 cont1 the website's critics consensus reads for visceral Thrills that can't be beat just don't expect the rock to engage your brain on Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 58 out of 100 based on 24 critics indicating mixed or average reviews audiences pulled by Cinema score gave the film an average grade of a on an A+ to f-scale the rock is a First Rate slam bang action thriller with a lot of style and no little humor it's made out of pieces of other movies yes and not much in it is really new but each element has been lovingly polished to a gloss and there are three skillful performances Sean connory is Mason an intelligence expert who's been in prison for 30 years Nicholas Cage is Goodspeed an FBI scientist and Ed Harris is Jenner hmel a war hero with a mad scheme to wage chemical warfare against San Francisco the plot Hook is a mission to break into new Alcatraz Harris and his men have occupied the former prison Island taken civilian hostages and threatened to fire deadly rockets at San Francisco unless their demands are met what are the demands huml who has three purple hearts two silver stars and the Medal of Honor is angered that 83 men have died under his command and never been recognized because they were on secret missions that the government denied even existed he wants $100 million in payments to their next of kin Hummel is known and respected in Washington and his demands are taken seriously a news blackout is imposed while the Pentagon assembles a team to break into Alcatraz and neutralize the poison gas missiles we've already seen good speed think fast while sealed in an airtight chamber with a deadly chemical bomb now he's assigned to join the task force even though he's basically a lab rat with minimal field or combat experience another key member of the team is Mason a British spy who we learn successfully stole all of J Edgar Hoover's secret files even the truth about JFK's assassination before being secretly jailed for life without a trial Mason's qualif ification he is a jailbreak expert who is the only man ever to escape success fully from Alcatraz movies like The Rock progress from one action sequence to another sometimes it doesn't even matter much how they fit together consider for example the highly entertaining way in which Mason turns a haircut into an opportunity to dangle one of his old enemies by a cord from a top floor of a hotel in the way that leads to a San Francisco street car chase inspired by Bullet leading to a crash almost as Sensational as the train crash in The Fugitive strange isn't it that after going to all that trouble to escape Mason allows himself to be recaptured almost passively probably because unless he joins the team the there's no movie strange too that although it has time for unlimited action The Rock never slows down enough for a scene you might have thought was obligatory in which Mason has the plan explained to him along with a pitch about why he should go along he has a motive all right his only child is in San Francisco and could be one of the poison victims it's just that the movie Never quite bothers at this stage to tell him formally about the poison the break into Alcatraz owes something to Don Seagal escaped from Alcatraz the 1979 Clint Eastwood movie while that one negotiated the Maze of tunnels under Alcatraz in murky Darkness however the rock provides Alcatraz with a Subterranean Labyrinth as large and well-lit as the sewers in the third man and as crammed with props and unidentified metallic Machinery as the Alien movies the plot moves efficiently between firefights explosions torrents of water hand-to-hand combat interrogation torture imprisonment escape and scientific mumbo jumbo as the infiltrators try to stop Harris's men from wiping out 70,000 San franciscans and the Pentagon prepares to firebomb the island with plain loads of thermite plasma which sure sounds neat all of these elements are standard issue for action thrillers but the script adds some deaf touches asked if he knows why he has been released from prison connory Riley said I've been locked up longer than Nelson Mandela maybe you want me to run for president what really works is the chemistry between connory as a reluctant Warrior who has all the skills necessary to outsmart and outfight the occupying force and cage as the nerd who can disarm the Rockets but is not much in The Killing department and then there is an intriguing complexity added to the Ed Harris character who is not as one-dimensional as he seems early in the film he advises some small children touring Alcatraz to return to their tour booat there are some loose ends cage and connory keep turning up dry when they should be wet a White House Aid gently says we need a decision Mr President after the deadline has passed and gets a speech so long it could have cost the 70,000 lives and of course the heroes are allowed to Eaves drop as needed on any conversations containing information they need to know in a movie that borrows from all the movies I've already listed plus secondhand filching from die hard and related epics there are two particularly obvious steals the old hypodermic needle plunging Into the Heart trick from Quenton Tarantino's Pulp Fiction and the Mexican standoff in which everybody has a gun pulled on everyone else from qt's Reservoir Dogs and True Romance courtesy of old westerns two lifts from Tarantino maybe the producers Jerry breimer and the late Don Simpson were getting their revenge for the famous Tarantino monologue in sleep with me where he analyzed their Top Gun as a homosexual Parable no matter director Michael Bay Bad Boys orchestrates the elements into to an efficient and exciting movie with some big laughs Sensational special effect sequences and sustained suspense and it's interesting to see how good actors like connory cage and Harris can find a way to occupy the center of this Whirlwind with characters who somehow manage to be quirky and convincing there are several identic Hollywood action stars who can occupy the center of Chaos like this but not many can make it look like they think they're really there watching The Rock you really care about what happens you feel silly later for having been sucked in but that's part of the ride the rock is a 1996 American action thriller film directed by Michael Bay produced by Don Simpson and Jerry brookheimer and written by David Weisberg Douglas cook and Mark Rosner it stars Shan connory Nicholas Cage and Ed Harris with supporting roles played by Michael Bean William foresight David Morse and John Spencer in the film The Pentagon assigns a team comprising an FBI chemist and a former SAS Captain with a team of seals to break into Alcatraz where a rogue General and a rogue group of force Recon Marines have seized all the tourists on the island and have threatened to launch rockets filled with nerve gas upon San Francisco unless the US government pays $100 million to the next of kin of 83 men who were killed on missions that the general led and that the Pentagon denied The Rock was dedicated to the memory of Simpson who died 5 months before its release the film was released by buen a Vista pictures Distribution on June 7th 1996 it received positive reviews from critics and was nominated for best sound at the 69th Academy Awards it was also a financial success earning box office receipts of over $335 million against a production budget of $75 million and became the fourth highest grossing film of 1996 it was remade in India as kiamat city under threat plot disillusioned us Brigadier General Francis hmel and his second in command Major Tom Baxter lead a group of Rogue Force Recon Marines and stealing 15 m55 Rockets filled with VX poison gas a potent chemical weapon capable of killing any living organism in seconds the next day humel and his man seize control of alcatra Island taking the tourists and guards hostage he threatens to launch the rockets at San Francisco unless the US government pays him a 100 million from a covert slush fund which he will distribute to his men and the families of the Marines who died on Covert missions under his command but whose sacrifices were not compensated honored or acknowledged the Department of Defense and the FBI plot to retake the island using a US Navy sealed team led by Commander Anderson FBI chemical weapons specialist Dr Stanley Goodspeed and elderly British former SAS Captain John Mason the only man to escape Alcatraz Mason has been imprisoned for three decades disavowed by the British government and his existence concealed by the FBI FBI director James wilmac deceives Mason with the offer of a pardon and acquiesces to his request to move to a hotel from which Mason escapes after Mason leads the FBI on a destructive car chase through San Francisco good speed finds him meeting with his estranged daughter Jade as the FBI arrives Mason expresses his regret to her for not being in her life at the mission Command Center Mason negotiates to join the team on Alcatraz while Goodspeed fails to convince his pregnant girlfriend Carla not to travel to San Francisco the team infiltrates Alcatraz but Hummel's men are alerted to their presence and Ambush them in a shower room Hummel tries to convince Anderson to surrender but his new allies captains Darrow and Fry deliberately cause a shootout which kills Anderson's team except for Mason and good speed Who Remain undetected believing the mission of failure Mason prepares to leave until good speed reveals the truth about the VX which also threatens Jade Mason and Goodspeed work together to disable 12 rockets and kill several Marines after Hummel threatens to execute a hostage Mason surrenders to stall him while Goodspeed disables another rocket before also being captured after Mason frees himself and Goodspeed he reveals that he was an MI6 operative tasked with stealing a micr film created by J Edgar Hoover containing secrets of high-profile Global figures and classified us information including the Roswell incident Mason refused to reveal the micr film's location after being captured knowing he would be killed and was imprisoned without trial having assessed homl as an honorable soldier who will not kill Innocents Mason leaves but returns to save a captured goodp speed not wanting his child to grow up without a father The Ransom deadline passes leading Darrow and Fry to pressure hmel into firing a rocket but he redirects it to detonate harmlessly in the sea Hummel explains the Rockets were a bluff and he never intended to kill anyone declaring the mission over realizing they will not be paid Darrow and Fry kill backer and mortally wound hmel who tells Goods speed the location of the last rocket before dying meanwhile an air strike is initiated to blanket Alcatraz with experimental thermite plasma bombs which will neutralize the gas and incinerate everyone on the island good speed and Mason kill the remaining Marines including Darrow and Fry before signaling to abort the attack but not before one plane drops its bombs the blast throws good speed into the bay but Mason saves him good speed remotely confirms the mission's success but claims that Mason was vaporized in the blast the pair part weighs amicably after Mason recommends good speed visit a church in Fort Walton Kansas sometime later the now married Goodspeed and Carla hastily drive away from the church after recovering the microfilm Goodspeed asks Carla if she wants to know who really killed JFK cast Shan connory as Captain retired John Patrick Mason SAS MI6 Nicholas Cage as Dr Stanley Goodspeed FBI Ed Harris as general Francis X homo USMC Michael Bean as Commander Charles Anderson usn William foresy as Ernest Paxton FBI David moris as Major Tom Baxter USMC John Spencer as FBI director James wac John C McGinley as Captain Hendrick USMC box office for its opening weekend the film gross $25 million beating out mission impossible to reach the number one spot it would be overtaken by the Cable Guy during its second weekend produced on a $75 million budget The Rock grossed a total of 134 million in the US and Canada and $21 million Elsewhere for a worldwide total of $335 million it was the seventh highest grossing film for the US box office in 1996 and the fourth highest grossing US Film worldwide that year critical response on Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 67% based on 72 reviews with an average rating of 6.6 con10 the website's critics consensus reads for visceral Thrills that can't be beat just don't expect the rock to engage your brain on Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 58 out of 100 based on 24 critics indic indicating mixed or average reviews audiences pulled by Cinema score gave the film an average grade of a on an A+ to f scale the rock is a First Rate slam bang action thriller with a lot of style and no little humor it's made out of pieces of other movies yes and not much in it is really new but each element has been lovingly polished to a gloss and there are three skillful performances Sean connory is Mason an intelligence expert who's been in prison for 30 years Nicholas Cage is Goodspeed an FBI scientist and Ed Harris is Jenner hmel a war hero with a mad scheme to wage chemical warfare against San Francisco the plot Hook is a mission to break into Alcatraz Harris and his men have occupied the former prison island taken civilian hostages and threatened to fire deadly rockets at San Francisco unless their demands are met what are the demands huml who has three purple hearts two silver stars and the Medal of Honor is angered that 83 men have died under his command and never been recognized because they were on secret missions that the government denied even existed he wants $100 million in payments to their next of kin Hummel is known and respected in Washington and his demands are taken seriously a news blackout is imposed while the Pentagon assembles a team to break into Alcatraz and neutralize the poison gas missiles we've already seen good speed think fast while sealed in an airtight chamber with a deadly chemical bomb now he's assigned to join the task force even though he's basically a lab rat with minimal field door combat experience another key member of the team is Mason a British spy who we learn successfully stole all of J Edgar Hoover's secret files even the truth about JFK's assassination before being secretly jailed for life without a trial Mason's qualification he is a jailbreak expert who is the only man ever to escape success fully from Alcatraz movies like The Rock progress from one action sequence to another sometimes it doesn't even matter much how they fit together consider for example the highly entertaining way in which Mason turns a haircut into an opportunity to dangle one of his old enemies by a cord from a top floor of a hotel in the way that leads to a San Francisco street car chase inspired by Bullet leading to a crash almost as Sensational as the train crash in The Fugitive strange isn't it that after going to all that trouble to escape Mason allows himself to be recaptured almost passively probably because unless he joins the team there's no movie strange too that although it has time for unlimited action The Rock never slows down enough for a scene you might have thought was obligatory in which Mason has the plan explained to him along with a pitch about why he should go along he has a motive all right his only child is in San Francisco and could be one of the poison victims it's just that the movie Never never quite bothers at this stage to tell him formally about the poison the break into Alcatraz owes something to Don seagull's Escape from Alcatraz the 1979 Clint Eastwood movie while that one negotiated the Maze of tunnels under Alcatraz in murky Darkness however the rock provides Alcatraz with a Subterranean Labyrinth as large and well-lit as the sewers in the the third man and as crammed with props and unidentified metallic Machinery as the Alien movies the plot moves efficiently between firefights explosions torrents of water hand-to-hand combat interrogation torture imprisonment escape and scientific mumbo jumbo as the infiltrators try to stop Harris's men from wiping out 70,000 San franciscans and the Pentagon prepares to firebomb the island with plain loads of thermite plasma which sure sounds neat all of these elements are standard issue for action thrillers but the script adds some deaf touches asked if he knows why he has been released from prison connory Riley said I've been locked up longer than Nelson Mandela maybe you want me to run for president what really works is is the chemistry between connory as a reluctant Warrior who has all the skills necessary to outsmart and outfight the occupying force and cage as the nerd who can disarm the Rockets but is not much in The Killing department and then there is an intriguing complexity added to the Ed Harris character who is not as one dimensional as he seems early in the film he advises some small children touring out alcatra to return to their tour booat there are some loose ends cage and connory keep turning up dry when they should be wet a White House Aid gently says we need add decision Mr President after the deadline has passed and gets a speech so long it could have cost the 70,000 lives and of course the heroes are allowed to Eaves drop as needed on any conversations containing information they need to know in a movie that borrows from all the movies I've already listed plus secondhand filching from die hard and related epics there are two particularly obvious steals the old hypodermic needle plunging Into the Heart trick from Quenton Tarantino's Pulp Fiction and the Mexican standoff in which everybody has a gun pulled on everyone else from qt's Reservoir Dogs and True Romance courtesy of old westerns two lifts from Tarantino maybe the producers Jerry breimer and the late Don Simpson were getting their revenge for the famous Tarantino monologue in sleep with me where he analyzed their Top Gun as a homosexual Parable no matter director Michael Bay Bad Boys orch rates the elements into an efficient and exciting movie with some big laughs Sensational special effects sequences and sustain suspense and it's interesting to see how good actors like connory cage and Harris can find a way to occupy the center of this Whirlwind with characters who somehow manage to be quirky and convincing there are several identic Hollywood action stars who can occupy the Center of chaos like this but not many can make it look like they think they're really there watching The Rock you really care about what happens you feel silly later for having been sucked in but that's part of the ride the rock is a 1996 American action thriller film directed by Michael Bay produced by Don Simpson and Jerry brookheimer and written by David wiser ber Douglas es cook and Mark Rosner it stars Shan connory Nicholas Cage and Ed Harris with supporting roles played by Michael Bean William foresy David Morse and John Spencer in the film The Pentagon assigns a team comprising an FBI chemist and a former SAS Captain with a team of seals to break into Alcatraz where a rogue General and a rogue group of force Recon Marines have seized all the tourists on the island and have threatened to launch rockets filled with nerve gas upon San Francisco unless the US government pays $100 million to the next of kin of 83 men who were killed on missions that the general led and that the Pentagon denied The Rock was dedicated to the memory of Simpson who died 5 months before its release the film was released by buen a Vista pictures Distribution on June 7th 1996 it received positive reviews from critics and was nominated for best sound at the 69th Academy Awards it was also a financial success earning box office receipts of over $335 million against a production budget of $75 million and became the fourth highest grossing film of 1996 it was remade in India as kiamat city under threat plot disillusioned us Brigadier General Francis hmel and his second in command Major Tom Baxter lead a group of Rogue Force Recon Marines in stealing 15 m55 Rockets filled with VX poison gas a potent chemical weapon capable of killing any living organism in seconds the next day Hummel and his men seize control of Alcatraz Island taking the tourists and guards hostage he threatens to launch the rockets at San Francisco unless the US government pays him a 100 million from a covert slush fund which he will distribute to his men and the families of the Marines who died on Covert missions under his command but whose sacrifices were not compensated honored or acknowledged the department of defense and the FBI plot to retake the island using a US Navy SEAL team led by Commander Anderson FBI chemical weapons specialist Dr Stanley Goodspeed and elderly British former SAS Captain John Mason the only man to escape Alcatraz Mason has been imprisoned for three decades disavowed by the British government and his existence concealed by the FBI FBI director James wilmac deceives Mason with the offer of a pardon and acquiesces to his request to move to a hotel from which Mason escapes after Mason leads the FBI on a destructive car chase through San Francisco goodp speed finds him meeting with his estranged daughter Jade as the FBI arrives Mason expresses his regret to her for not being in her life at the mission Command Center Mason negotiates to join the team on Alcatraz while Goodspeed fails to convince his pregnant girlfriend Carla not to travel to San Francisco the team infiltrates Alcatraz but Hummel's men are alerted to their presence and Ambush them in a shower room Hummel tries to convince Anderson to surrender but his new allies captains Darrow and Fry deliberately cause a shootout which kills Anderson's team except for Mason and Goodspeed Who Remain undetected believing the mission of failure Mason prepares to leave until goodp speeed reveals the truth about the VX which also threatens Jade Mason and Goodspeed worked together to disable 12 rockets and kill several Marines after hmel threatens to execute a hostage Mason surrenders to stall him while Goodspeed disables another rocket before also being captured after Mason frees himself and Goodspeed he reveals that he was an MI6 operative tasked with stealing a micro film created by J Edgar Hoover containing secrets of high-profile Global figures and classified us information including the Roswell incident Mason refused to reveal the micr film's location after being captured knowing he would be killed and was imprisoned without trial having assessed homo as an honorable soldier who will not kill Innocents Mason leaves but returns to save a captured goodp speed not wanting his child to grow up without a father The Ransom deadline passed es leading Darrow and Fry to pressure hmel into firing a rocket but he redirects it to detonate harmlessly in the sea Hummel explains the Rockets were a bluff and he never intended to kill anyone declaring the mission over realizing they will not be paid Darrow and Fry kill Baxter and mortally wound hmel who tells Goodspeed the location of the last rocket before dying meanwhile an air strike is initiated to blanket Alcatraz with experimental thermite plasma bombs which will neutralize the gas and incinerate everyone on the island good speed and Mason kill the remaining Marines including Darrow and Fry before signaling to abort the attack but not before one plane drops its bombs the blast throws good speed into the bay but Mason saves him good speed remotely confirms the mission's success but claims that Mason was vaporized in the blast the pair part weighs amicably after Mason recommends good speed visit a church in Fort Walton Kansas sometime later the now married Goodspeed and Carla hastily drive away from the church after recovering the microfilm goodp asks if she wants to know who really killed JFK cast Shan connory as Captain retired John Patrick Mason SAS MI6 Nicholas Cage as Dr Stanley Goodspeed FBI Ed Harris as general Francis X HL USMC Michael Bean as Commander Charles Anderson usn William foresy as Ernest Paxton FBI David moris as Major Tom Baxter USMC John Spencer as FBI director James wac John C McGinley as Captain Hendrick USMC box office for its opening weekend the film gross $25 million beating out Mission Impossible ble to reach the number one spot it would be overtaken by the Cable Guy during its second weekend produced on a $75 million budget The Rock grossed a total of$ 134 million in the US and Canada and $21 million Elsewhere for a worldwide total of $335 million it was the seventh highest grossing film for the US box office in 1996 and the fourth highest grossing US Film worldwide that year critical response on Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 67% based on 72 reviews with an average rating of 6.6 cont 10 the website's critics consensus reads for visceral Thrills that can't be beat just don't expect the rock to engage your brain on Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 58 out of 100 based on 24 critics indicating mixed or average reviews audiences pulled by cinemascore gave the film an average grade of a on an A+ to f scale the rock is a First Rate slam bang action thriller with a lot of style and no little humor it's made out of pieces of other movies yes and not much in it is really new but each element has been lovingly polished to to a gloss and there are three skillful performances Sean connory is Mason an intelligence expert who's been in prison for 30 years Nicholas Cage is Goodspeed an FBI scientist and Ed Harris is Jenner hmel a war hero with a mad scheme to wage chemical warfare against San Francisco the plot Hook is a mission to break into Alcatraz Harris and his men have occupied the former prison island taken civilian hostages and threatened to fire deadly rockets at San Francisco unless their demands are met what are the demands humo who has three purple hearts two silver stars and the Medal of Honor is angered that 83 men have died under his command and never been recognized because they were on secret missions that the government denied even existed he wants $100 million in payments to their next of kin Hummel is known and respected in Washington and his demands are taken seriously a news blackout is imposed while the Pentagon assembles a team to break into Alcatraz and neutralize the poison gas missiles we've already seen good speed think fast while sealed in an airtight chamber with a deadly chemical bomb now he's assigned to join the task force even though he's basically a lab rat with minimal field or combat experience another key member of the team is Mason a British spy who we learn successfully stole all of J Edgar Hoover's secret files even the truth about JFK's assassination before being secretly jailed for life without a trial Mason's qualification he is a jailbreak expert who is the only man ever to escape success fully from Alcatraz movies like The Rock progress from one action sequence to another sometimes it doesn't even matter much how they fit together consider for example the highly entertaining way in which Mason turns a haircut into an opportunity to dangle one of his old old enemies by a cord from a top floor of a hotel in the way that leads to a San Francisco street car chase inspired by Bullet leading to a crash almost as Sensational as the train crash in The Fugitive strange isn't it that after going to all that trouble to escape Mason allows himself to be recaptured almost passively probably Because unless he joins the team there's no movie strange too that although it has time for unlimited action The Rock never slows down enough for a scene you might have thought was obligatory in which Mason has the plan explained to him along with a pitch about why he should go along he has a motive all right his only child is in San Francisco and could be one of the poison victims it's just that the movie Never quite bothers at this stage to tell him formally about the poison the break into Alcatraz owes something to Don seagull's Escape from Alcatraz the 1979 Clint Eastwood movie while that one negotiated the Maze of tunnels under Alcatraz in murky Darkness however the rock provides Alcatraz with a Subterranean Labyrinth as large and well-lit as as the sewers in the third man and as crammed with props and unidentified metallic Machinery as the Alien movies the plot moves efficiently between firefights explosions torrents of water hand-to-hand combat interrogation torture imprisonment escape and scientific mumbo jumbo as the infiltrators try to stop Harris's men from wiping out 70,000 San franciscans and the Pentagon prepares to firebomb the island with plain loads of thermite plasma which sure sounds neat all of these elements are standard issue for action thrillers but the script adds some deaf touches asked if he knows why he has been released from prison connory Riley said I've been locked up longer than Nelson Mandela maybe you want me to run for president what really works is the chemistry between connory as a reluctant Warrior who has all the skills necessary to outsmart and outfight the occupying force and cage as the nerd who can disarm the Rockets but is not much in The Killing department and then there is an intriguing complexity added to the Ed Harris character who is not as one-dimensional as he seems early in the film he advises some small children touring alcatra to return to their tour booat there are some loose ends cage and connory keep turning up dry when they should be wet a White House Aid gently says we need at decision Mr President after the deadline has passed and gets a speech so long it could have cost the 70,000 lives and of course the heroes are allowed to Eaves drop as needed on any conversations containing information they need to know in a movie that borrows from all the movies I've already listed plus secondhand filching from die hard and related epics there are two particularly obvious steals the old hypodermic needle plunging Into the Heart trick from Quenton Tarantino's Pulp Fiction and the Mexican standoff in which everybody has a gun pull on everyone else from qt's Reservoir Dogs and True Romance courtesy of old westerns two lifts from Tarantino maybe the producers Jerry breimer and the late Don Simpson were getting their revenge for the famous Tarantino monologue in sleep with me where he analyzed their Top Gun as a homosexual Parable no matter director Michael Bay bad boy orchestrates the elements into an efficient and exciting movie with some big laughs Sensational special effect sequences and sustain suspense and it's interesting to see how good actors like connory cage and Harris can find a way to occupy the center of this Whirlwind with characters who somehow manage to be quirky and convincing there are several identic Hollywood action Stars who can occupy the center of chaos like this but not many can make it look like they think they're really there watching The Rock you really care about what happens you feel silly later for having been sucked in but that's part of the ride the rock is a 1996 American action thriller film directed by Michael Bay produced by Don Simpson and Jerry brookheimer and written by David Weisberg Douglas es cook and Mark Rosner it stars Shan connory Nicholas Cage and Ed Harris with supporting roles played by Michael Bean William foresight David Morse and John Spencer in the film The Pentagon assigns a team comprising an FBI chemist and a former SAS Captain with a team of seals to break into Alcatraz where a a rogue General and a rogue group of force Recon Marines have seized all the tourists on the island and have threatened to launch rockets filled with nerve gas upon San Francisco unless the US government pays $100 million to the next of kin of 83 men who were killed on missions that the general led and that the Pentagon denied The Rock was dedicated to the memory of Simpson who died 5 months months before its release the film was released by buen a Vista pictures Distribution on June 7th 1996 it received positive reviews from critics and was nominated for best sound at the 69th Academy Awards it was also a financial success earning box office receipts of over $335 million against a production budget of $75 million and became the fourth highest grossing film of 1996 it was remade in India as kiamat city under threat plot disillusioned us Brigadier General Francis hmel and his second in command Major Tom Baxter lead a group of Rogue Force Recon Marines in stealing 15 m55 Rockets filled with VX poison gas a potent chemical weapon capable of killing any living organism in seconds the next day Hummel and his men seize control of Alcatraz Island taking the tourists and guards hostage he threatens to launch the rockets at San Francisco unless the US government pays him a 100 million from a covert slush fund which he will distribute to his men and the families of the Marines who died on Covert missions under his command but whose sacrifices were not compensated honored or acknowledged the Department of Defense and the FBI plots retake the island using a US Navy sealed team led by Commander Anderson FBI chemical weapons specialist Dr Stanley Goodspeed an elderly British former SAS Captain John Mason the only man to escape Alcatraz Mason has been imprisoned for three decades disavowed by the British government and his existence concealed by the the FBI FBI director James wilmack deceives Mason with the offer of a pardon and acquiesces to his request to move to a hotel from which Mason escapes after Mason leads the FBI on a destructive car chase through San Francisco good speed finds him meeting with his estranged daughter Jade as the FBI arrives Mason expresses his regret to her for not being in her life at the mission Command Center Mason negotiates to join the team on Alcatraz while Goodspeed fails to convince his pregnant girlfriend Carla not to travel to San Francisco the team infiltrates Alcatraz but Hummel's men are alerted to their presence and Ambush them in a shower room Hummel tries to convince Anderson to surrender but his new allies captains Darrow and Fry deliberately cause a shootout which kills Anderson's team except for Mason and Goodspeed Who Remain undetected believing the mission of failure Mason prepares to leave until good speed reveals the truth about the VX which also threatens Jade Mason and Goodspeed worked together to disable 12 rockets and kill several Marines after Hummel threatens to execute a hostage Mason surrenders to stall him while goodp speed disables another rocket before also being captured after Mason frees himself and good speed he reveals that he was an MI6 operative tasked with stealing a micro film created by J Edgar Hoover containing secrets of high-profile Global figures and classified us information including the Roswell incident Mason refused to reveal the micr film's location after being captured knowing he would be killed and was imprisoned without trial having assessed homel as an honorable soldier who will not kill Innocents Mason leaves but returns to save a captured Goods speed not wanting his child to grow up without a father the r Ransom deadline passes leading Darrow and Fry to pressure hmel into firing a rocket but he redirects it to detonate harmlessly in the sea Hummel explains the Rockets were a bluff and he never intended to kill anyone declaring the mission over realizing they will not be paid Darrow and Fry kill Baxter and mortally wound hmel who tells good beep the location of the last rocket before dying meanwhile an air strike is initiated to blanket Alcatraz with experimental thermite plasma bombs which will neutralize the gas and incinerate everyone on the island good speed and Mason kill the remaining Marines including Darrow and Fry before signaling to abort the attack but not before one plane drops its bombs the blast throws good speed into the bay but Mason saves him good speed remotely confirms the mission's success but claims that Mason was vaporized in the blast the pair part weighs amicably after Mason recommends Goodspeed visit a church in Fort Walton Kansas sometime later the now married Goodspeed and Carla hastily drive away from the church after recovering the microfilm Goodspeed asks Carla if she wants to know who really killed JFK cast Shan Connor as Captain retired John Patrick Mason SAS MI6 Nicholas Cage as Dr Stanley Goodspeed FBI Ed Harris as general Francis X homo USMC Michael Bean as Commander Charles Anderson usn William fory as Ernest Paxton FBI David moris as Major Tom Baxter USMC John Spencer as FBI director James wac John C McGinley as Captain Hendrick USMC box office for its opening weekend the film gross $25 million beating out mission impossible to reach the number one spot it would be overtaken by the Cable Guy during its second weekend produced on a $75 million budget The Rock grossed a total of 134 million in the US and Canada and $21 million Elsewhere for a worldwide total of $335 million it was the seventh highest grossing film for the US box office in 1996 and the fourth highest grossing US Film worldwide that year critical response on Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 67% based on 72 reviews with an average rating of 6.61 the website's critics consensus reads for visceral Thrills that can't be beat just don't expect the rock to engage your brain on Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 58 out of 100 based on 24 critics indicating mixed or average reviews audiences pulled by Cinema score gave the film an average grade of a on an A+ to f scale the rock is a First Rate slam bang action thriller with a lot of style and no little humor it's made out of pieces of other movies yes and not much in it is really new but each element has been lovingly polished to a gloss and there are three skillful performances Sean connory is Mason an intelligence expert who's been in prison for 30 years Nicholas Cage is Goodspeed an FBI scientist and Ed Harris is Jenner hmel a war hero with a mad scheme to wage chemical warfare against San Francisco the plot Hook is a mission to break into Alcatraz Harris and his men have occupied the former prison island taken civilian hostages and threatened to fire deadly rockets at San Francisco unless their demands are met what are the demands huml who has three purple hearts two silver stars and the Medal of Honor is angered that 83 men have died under his command and never been recognized because they were on secret missions that the government denied even existed he wants $100 million in payments to their next of kin hmel is known and respected in Washington and his demands are taken seriously a news blackout is imposed while the Pentagon assembles a team to break into Alcatraz and neutralize the poison gas missiles we've already seen good speed think fast while SE in an airtight chamber with a deadly chemical bomb now he's assigned to join the task force even though he's basically a lab rat with minimal field or combat experience another key member of the team is Mason a British spy who we learn successfully stole all of J Edgar Hoover's secret files even the truth about JFK's assassination before being secretly jailed for life without a trial Mason's qualification he is a jailbreak expert who is the only man ever to escape success fully from Alcatraz movies like The Rock progress from one action sequence to another sometimes it doesn't even matter much how they fit together consider for example the highly entertaining way in which Mason turns a haircut into an opportunity to dangle one of his old enemies by a cord from a top floor of a hotel in the way that leads to a San Francisco street car chase inspired by Bullet leading to a crash almost as Sensational as the train crash in The Fugitive strange isn't it that after going to all that trouble to escape Mason allows himself to be recaptured almost passively probably because unless he joins the team there's no movie strange too that although it has time for unlimited action The Rock never slows down enough for a scene you might have thought was obligatory in which Mason has the plan explained to him along with a pitch about why he should go along he has a motive all right his only child is in San Francisco and could be one of the poison victims it's just that the movie Never quite bothers at this stage to tell him formally about the poison the break into Alcatraz owes something to Don seagull's Escape from Alcatraz the 1979 Clint Eastwood movie while that one negotiated the Maze of tunnels under Alcatraz in murky Darkness however the rock provides Alcatraz with a Subterranean Labyrinth as large and well- lit as the sewers in the third man and as crammed with props and unidentified metallic Machinery as the Alien movies the plot moves efficiently between firefights explosions Torrance of water hand-to-hand combat interrogation torture imprisonment escape and scientific mumbo jumbo as the infiltrators try to stop Harris's men