The Rock

Decided to revisit The Rock last Summer after stopping by a local thrift store, and impressed was I as it chaotically unreeled.

It reminded me of a time when I still considered blockbusters to represent the best of what cinema had to offer, long before I discovered non-British European movies (I already knew about British films), Québec's vital film industry, Takashi Miike, Kurosawa, or Criterions.

Blockbusters are still kind of fun, especially when they're deep, the big picture critiqued in miniature, striking slices of stark sensation.

After the insane number of sequels released last Summer I even found myself wishing another Skyscraper was in the works, not a Skyscraper sequel, to be precise, but something sort of different that at least attempted to start something new.

Even if it channelled Die Hard.

I've mentioned this before.

Stuber filled the gap meanwhile.

The Rock never had any sequels and if it had they likely would have seemed preposterous, or at least too logically improbable, if they had sought to reunite Cage (Stanley Goodspeed) and Connery (John Patrick Mason).

The film's actual plot still likely seems preposterous if you read or talk to people about it, or see it I suppose, even if it rationalizes insanity well.

If you don't like action films or sports I imagine watching The Rock would be excruciating, 20 plus years later no less, some of its best lines as ra ra as they are hyper-reactively appropriate, like watching solid Monday Night Football, a Raptors/Clippers showdown, the Leafs facing off in Montréal, or Hamilton taking on the Argos.

As far as I remember, it was released before globalization took off, or just as it was taking off, when America was examining itself critically, even from militaristic perspectives.

And the hero's a green nerd (Cage) who'll pay $600 for one of the Beatles's worst albums (old vinyl though), his partner a dangerous Brit who's been locked up for at least 30 years, like Michael Bay of all directors was deeply concerned with creating something memorable, something that had never been seen before, in sharp contrast to so many new action films.

Take some of these scenes.

After some tourists find themselves locked up on the Rock, there's a really short moment that lasts long enough for one of them to say, "what kind of fucked up tour is this?"

It's funny, and could have easily been left out, but Bay realized how cool it was, and kept it in to generate humour and tension.

I've never seen anything like it in a Marvel film, even if they excel at multidimensionally entertaining.

There's also a high speed chase through San Francisco that revels in cinematic mayhem, that introduces a tour of the city, on a trolly, as everything goes to hell.

Then, as an elite group of Navy SEALs prepares to take on well-heeled Marines on Alcatraz, and Mr. Goodspeed seeks a breakdown of what's going on, one of the SEALS (Danny Nucci as Lieutenant Shepard), a relatively unknown actor at the time who had yet to say anything in the film, delivers an extremely precise borderline passionate synopsis, that startles as it summarizes, and shocks with exhilarating brevity.

What an opportunity for a young actor.

Nucci totally nails it.

There's nothing like that scene, that moment, in current action films, like the lines were created to give someone the opportunity to build a career, instead of all the roles going to world cinema's best and brightest.

It's like the actors in The Rock are fighting to build or sustain a career, from Vanessa Marcil (Carla Pestalozzi) to Tony Todd (Captain Darrow) to David Morse (Major Tom Baxter) to John C. McGinley (Captain Hendrix), no one holding back or resting on old school precedent, just givin' 'er hardcore with ample opportunity to do so.

There are at least 17 actors who stand out in this film.

That's a script that cultivates 1990s diversity (written by David Weisberg, Douglas Cook and Mark Rosner).

Cage and Connery work well together, the former frenetically perspiring athleticism, as he's suddenly thrust into the frenzied fray, replete with doubt, inexperience, and a pregnant partner, Michael Biehn (Commander Anderson), Ed Harris (General Francis X. Hummel), and William Forsythe (Ernest Paxton) givin' 'er too, the film's just so damned professional.

With a ne'er-do-well landing on a spike near the end.

This is what blockbusters could be like before pirating.

Greater risks.

Greater reward.

I'm recommending The Rock.

And watching it again this Winter.