Review of The Rock (1996) by Toni K — 15 Mar 2010

The Rock is sophomore effort by love him or hate him director Michael Bay. New or old when you watch a Bay movie you expect to get lots of things blowing up and lots of typical one liners and other thing seen in late 80's action movies. But it works here and that is largely because of the cast. Outside of Cage, everyone gives a good performance. Ed Harris and Connery are the real standouts with Michael Biehn having a slightly underwritten role.

This was about the time action films started getting way overblown and this film shows that transition. The film starts out pretty well introducing us to the main characters and setting up the predictable plot, but as the film goes along it gets more ridiculous and slowly becomes the typical over dramatic action movie that Bay is now known for. The frenzy camerawork works perfectly for the first chase scene and I got to give Bay credit for that. The problem is he simply can't hold back from going over dramatic and that's what takes the film from good action movie to guilty pleasure action movie. It's a real shame that he threw away a good first hour and some good performances only to meltdown when the team gets to The Rock. But that's Michael Bay for you.