Plot
A renegade general and his group of U.S. Marines take over Alcatraz and threaten San Francisco Bay with biological weapons. A chemical weapons specialist and the only man to have ever escaped from the Rock attempt to prevent chaos.
Release Year: 1996
Rating: 7.3/10 (142,161 voted)
Critic's Score: 59/100
Director:
Michael Bay
Stars: Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage, Ed Harris
Storyline Stanley Goodspeed, who lives in Washington D.C., is a biochemist who works for the FBI. Soon after his fiancée Carla Pestalozzi announces that she is pregnant, Stanley gets a call from FBI director James Womack. Womack tells Stanley that San Francisco's Alcatraz Island has been taken hostage, along with 81 tourists, by marine General Francis Xavier Hummel who, for years, has been protesting the government's refusal to pay benefits to families of war veterans who died during covert military operations. The death of his wife Barbara Hummel on March 9, 1995 drove General Hummel over the edge, and now he's holding hostages in order to get his point across. Stanley is needed because General Hummel has stolen some VX gas warheads and has announced that he will launch them onto San Francisco unless his demands are met. Stanley knows how to disarm the bombs, but Stanley needs someone who knows Alcatraz well enough to get him inside...
Writers: David Weisberg, Douglas Cook
Cast: Sean Connery
-
John Patrick Mason
Nicolas Cage
-
Dr. Stanley Goodspeed
Ed Harris
-
Brigadier General Francis X. Hummel
John Spencer
-
FBI Director James Womack
David Morse
-
Major Tom Baxter
William Forsythe
-
Special Agent Ernest Paxton
Michael Biehn
-
Commander Charles Anderson
Vanessa Marcil
-
Carla Pestalozzi
John C. McGinley
-
Marine Captain Hendrix
(as John C. Mc Ginley)
Gregory Sporleder
-
Captain Frye
Tony Todd
-
Captain Darrow
Bokeem Woodbine
-
Sergeant Crisp
Jim Maniaci
-
Private Scarpetti
Greg Collins
-
Private Gamble
Brendan Kelly
-
Private Cox
Taglines:
Alcatraz. Only one man has ever broken out. Now five million lives depend on two men breaking in.
Release Date: 7 June 1996
Filming Locations: Alcatraz Island, San Francisco Bay, California, USA
Box Office Details
Budget: $70,000,000
(estimated)
Opening Weekend: $25,069,525
(USA)
(9 June 1996)
Gross: $325,000,000
(Worldwide)
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Did You Know?
Trivia:
Most of the scenes involving F/A-18s are stock footage of the U.S. Navy Blue Angels.
Goofs:
Plot holes:
VX is supposed to be resistant to napalm's heat (over 3000 degrees F), so when the missile was "aborted" over the ocean, it would still have released all its gas.
Quotes:
[first lines]
General Hummel:
Congressman Weaver and esteemed members of the Special Armed Services Committee, I come before you to protest a grave injustice... It has to stop.
User Review
Definitely underrated!
Rating: 10/10
"The Rock" combined action, adventure, comedy, romance, special effects
and a great plot into one of the biggest worldwide blockbuster action
films in decades. Add to the mix, Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage, Ed Harris
and a great supporting cast including John Spencer, William Forsythe
and David Morse, and "The Rock" is one of the best ways to spend two
hours. This film also devotes a great deal of time and effort to
character development, something that most action movies neglect. This
film is definitely underrated and is worth more praise than it has
received.
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