Dir Michael Bay

Written by David Weisberg, Douglas Cook, Mark Rosner.

Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage, Ed Harris, David Morse, John Spencer, William Forsythe, Michael Biehn, Vanessa Marcil, John C McGinley, Tony Todd, Bokeem Woodbine, Gregory Sporleder, Danny Nucci, Claire Forlani, Willie Garson,

The recently widowed General Hummel (Harris) takes 83 Alcatraz tourists hostage in order for his government to pay the families of men he lost under his command in a secret mission years ago. The money would come from a slush fund the government has. He has hired a team of mercenaries, and has also taken a dozen missiles with a dangerous nerve gas inside them.

The government recruits a long incarcerated former inmate of ‘The Rock’, and only man who ever escaped John Mason (Connery), and an FBI chemical weapons expert Stanley Goodspeed (Cage) to tag along with a team to break in, save the hostages, and stop the missiles. But when the entire team but Mason and Goodspeed is wiped out moments after arriving, it’s up to the two remaining men to finish the mission.

From loud and fast director Bay, comes the first of the ‘Cage Action Trilogy’ of the late 90s. There are some fun action sequences throughout the almost 140m runtime, and some of these take place before they get to The Rock. One particular action pieces has Cage in a Ferrari chasing Connery in a Hum vee causing all sorts of chaos. The primary setting, which occurred at the actual Alcatraz, is quite impressive.

The cast are on point, with no overly wooden performances. There are some creative nods to Connery’s ‘charisma’ as he was in his last decade or so of performing before his retirement. Their characters, who are polar opposites who are put in an extreme situation is obviously a cliché but they make it work.

The screenplay is nothing too extraordinary, but it is amusing to hear Connery say the ‘f’ word multiple times in his trademark thick Scottish accent. The score has the same dynamic feel to it as other films in Bay’s filmography. Some of the pacing is a little off, with a portion of the second act not even having a moment on ‘The Rock’, but more revolves around getting Mason on board the job.

Xander Berkley, Raymond Cruz, Philip Baker Hall, Stanley Anderson, Stuart Wilson all appear unbilled.

I still enjoyed this, and feel like it holds up.