The Rock [Blu-ray]

Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage, Ed Harris. The action-packed blockbuster about a Marine general who takes over Alcatraz and threatens to kill all of San Francisco with poison gas. 1996/color/136 min/R.

Between his high-octane debut, iBad Boys/i, and 1998's wannabe blockbuster iArmageddon/i, hotshot director Michael Bay forged his dubious reputation with this crowd-pleasing action extravaganza. In it a psychotically disgruntled war hero (Ed Harris) seizes the island prison of Alcatraz and threatens to wage chemical warfare against nearby San Francisco unless the government publicly recognizes the men who were killed under Harris's top-secret command. Nicolas Cage plays the biochemist who teams up with the only man ever to have escaped from Alcatraz (Sean Connery) in an attempt to foil Harris's terrorist scheme. As one might expect, what follows is an action-packed barrage of bullets, bodies, and climactic confrontations, replete with enough plot contrivances to give even the most jaded action fan cause for alarm. It's a load of hooey, but the cast is obviously having a grand old time, and there's enough wit to make the recycled action sequences tolerable. If you're ordering this movie on Blu-ray, be careful with the volume knobs on your home-theater sound systems, because iThe Rock/i could cause partial hearing loss and structural damage to your home. i--Jeff Shannon/i