Viking Night: Michael Bay May Phase II - The Rock
By Bruce Hall
May 9, 2017
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Damn you, Michael Bay.
I have already seen The Rock at least twice, and for a Michael Bay flick, that’s high praise. It happens to be my favorite of his films (also a somewhat misleading statement), but that’s not because it’s artistically any better than the rest of them. It’s because The Rock stars Ed Harris as a vengeful Marine who takes over Alcatraz island and Nicolas Cage as a chemical weapons specialist (just accept it) assigned to stop him. Along for the ride are Michael Biehn as a Navy SEAL (obviously), and Sean Connery showing Liam Neeson what’s up in what can only be described as a fitting swan song for James Bond.
Finally, we have the great William Forsythe, playing the same guy he usually plays. It’s as though Michael Bay heard about my disdain for Bad Boys, and personally responded by peppering his next film with some of my favorite character actors! Not all of these people necessarily even have large roles, but I’d pay $7.50 to watch Michael Biehn brush his teeth, so you know that matinee ticket is no sweat. Spoiler alert - The Rock is a brain shatteringly stupid film, but it’s a ton of fun, and I love it anyway. And you can chalk that up one hundred percent to the cast.
I can’t be the only one who feels this way, right? Are we all fans of these guys, or does everyone who watches The Rock just see a bunch of their own favorite actors in the same roles, like a Twilight Zone episode about a society whose collective intellect is in a nationwide race to zero?
Is Michael Bay a sorcerer? Is he the little girl from the Ring? It’s not out of the question, because whenever I tell people how much I hated {insert name of Michael Bay film here}, I am told that I “think too much.” But when I ask those same people to tell me how much of the story they can remember, they start twitching and sparking like overstimulated fembots. It’s like trying to explain to a child how bad Pop Rocks are for you, right after he’s just eaten an entire box of them. You’re as likely to be bitten as anything else.
There’s something about Bay’s work that speaks to our Lizard Brains. That’s the part that makes you swat at bugs instinctively, salivate when you see ice cream and read just the headline of an internet article before jumping to conclusions and Tweeting death threats to someone you’ve never met. I’m not sure why his films have this effect on people, but it’s fair to say that The Rock has that effect on me (wishing I hadn’t sent that tweet...).
Damn you, Michael Bay.
That aside, this is also an incredibly stupid movie whose plot makes almost no logical sense whatsoever. The dialogue is better this time around, but it’s mostly things that no human would ever say in a thousand lifetimes. Michael Bay is also one of the few filmmakers who is happy to make a military themed film without researching one goddamn thing about the subject. His stance would seem to be that as long as you show the audience the uniforms, the jets and have everyone bark their lines in vaguely military sounding jargon, audiences won’t know the difference.
He’s right, of course. This is one of his trademarks - the “broad strokes” treatment. It normally angers me. But this time, it delighted me!
Stanley Goodspeed (Nicolas Cage) is the world’s coolest and most stupidly named chemical weapons specialist. He lives with his super-hot girlfriend (Vanessa Marcil) in a fabulously appointed urban loft, which looks like the backdrop of a Madonna video. Before you assume this to be beyond the financial reach of a scientist, remember that nothing Stanley does for the duration of this film in any way resembles the occupation of “chemical weapons specialist.” Just take your precious “logic” and “thinking” elsewhere, pal. You won’t be needing it here.
Stanley and Hot Wife have just become pregnant, prompting HER to propose marriage to HIM. This 90-second scene is crucial because it not only establishes a set of stakes, but it’s also the full extent of Stanley’s character development throughout this film. From this point on, Stanley Goodspeed is “Dude Having Baby.” This is what passes for character development in the Bayverse - but we don’t come to the Bayverse for character development, do we?
No, we come here for guys like Brigadier General Francis Hummel (Ed Harris). Hummel is upset that families of US Marines lost on top secret missions under his command have been denied benefits. That’s certainly a worthy cause, and I would think that one call to the Washington Post breaks that story wide open. Maybe that’s why I never made Brigadier General. Hummel chooses a more direct approach, meaning he and his loyal men hijack a top-secret stash of deadly VX nerve gas, take over Alcatraz island and threaten to launch the stuff into San Francisco unless the government makes amends.
Sound extreme? This was the ‘90s, brother. Everything was extreme.
In this role, Ed Harris is everything I love about Ed Harris. He brings legitimate gravity to a character whose dialogue is mostly word salad, shouted in staccato cadences and full of glittering words like “honor,” “justice,” and “liberty.” He also has a dead wife, whose grave he regularly visits. This is meant to imply that he’s less a villain and more a conflicted hero. But when you stop and think about his plan, it’s as bugfuck insane as a barrel full of drunk monkeys, and twice as cruel and pointless. But you’re NOT going to stop and think about it, because this is a Michael Bay film, and I warned you about “thinking” a minute ago.
The big “get” here, though, is Connery, whose pedigree speaks for itself. His character is Patrick Mason, described in breathless tones as a “professional escape artist” and “former SAS.” He possesses uncanny powers of healing and observation. He also has an encyclopedic knowledge of Greek literature, exclusively acquired for the two minutes he has on screen with Ed Harris. We know all this because in Michael Bay movies, exposition consists of two characters shouting their resumes at each other in the rain, over Hans Zimmer’s robotic horn stabs. Broad strokes, people. Broad strokes.
Of course, Mason is no “escape artist.” It turns out he only escaped Alcatraz by solving a physics puzzle from Half-Life 2. Based on his actions in the film, Mason is more what my idea of an “escape artist” would have been in high school, if you’d put a gun in my face and given me ten seconds to come up with attributes:
“Uh...he can cut through bulletproof glass with an ordinary coin... um... maybe he escapes custody by prank calling room service and ordering excessive amounts of shrimp... and... confuses the police by driving an assault vehicle through... I don’t know… a trolley... in San Francisco... oh God, please don’t kill me….”
It’s all senseless crap, but it doesn’t matter. Connery’s turn here as a septuagenarian action hero leads to a priceless pair-up with Cage late in the film that I would gleefully visit a hundred times before I’d ever revisit Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Ultimately, the climax to The Rock includes Michael Biehn and an elderly James Bond teaming up with Oddball Nic Cage Character #249 for a boss fight against the Evil Cowboy from Westworld - in the subterranean maze of Tomb Raider levels that apparently exists under San Francisco bay. For good measure, throw in a bunch of poison gas missiles, a few dozen hostages and a bucket of popcorn.
If you can think of anything cooler than that, you’re a damn liar - because there IS nothing cooler than that. It’s like getting to passively play the weirdest Call of Duty mod ever, with top notch voice acting and cutting edge graphics.
It’s got everything I hate about Michael Bay movies, AND the things I must admit I love about them - in equal measure. There’s an arbitrary time limit. There’s a plucky team dynamic. When the plot needs to move forward, something explodes, there’s a car chase, Hans Zimmer fires up a chorus of jackhammers and the next thing you know, ten minutes have passed and the camera is spinning around a puzzled looking Nicolas Cage. Like candy, it’s only of benefit to you while you’re consuming it. But it remains immensely watchable, and still stands as one of Bay’s best attempts at formula, but I can’t give him all the credit.
No special effect can recreate Ed Harris’ chiseled intensity and laser beam eyes. You could daisy-chain the CPUs of a thousand overstimulated fembots and still fall short of the mad brilliance that was Nicolas Cage circa 1998. William Forsythe is a taller Joe Pesci whose voice doesn’t sound like a circular saw, and is also believable as a cop. No amount of CGI can equal what Michael Biehn brings to the table. And nothing in the world is better than the moment when Connery sneaks into Alcatraz by himself, flings the front door open and announces to a group of astonished Navy SEALS - in that spongy accent:
“Welcome to the Rock!”
This movie is lightning in a bottle, and the one time Bay managed to catch it is still worth experiencing today. He bribed me, I bought it, I loved it, and I’d do it all again.
Damn you, Michael Bay.