THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc. DATE: Wednesday, June 12, 1996 TAG: 9606120018 SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E5 EDITION: FINAL TYPE: Movie Review SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC LENGTH: 66 lines
IS IT POSSIBLE to have too much action in a movie?
Apparently not, as ``The Rock,'' with the volume and the carnage pumped up to the max, has already become yet-another blockbuster hit. This is the summer that may well break the all-time record for attendance in movie theaters.
So far, everything is on schedule, with the expected hits surpassing all expectations. But will the need for high-tech explosions last through the upcoming months of huge-budgeted entries? ``The Rock'' brings up the question because it may just be the noisiest, and most preposterous, of the lot.
It has the Marines vs. the Navy SEALs (and the Marines aren't going to like the way they're pictured). Ed Harris is yet another crazed Vietnam vet who's gone over the edge, taken over Alcatraz, taken 81 civilians hostage and threatened to blast San Francisco with human-melting rockets.
Alcatraz has frequently been used in the movies - ranging from Clint Eastwood's routine ``Escape from Alcatraz'' to Burt Lancaster's memorable performance in ``Birdman of Alcatraz'' - but this is the first time it's been the center of a break-IN. The SEALs have to traverse underwater to get inside and disarm the rockets. When things go wrong, only Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery (billed as ``a lab rat and a 60-year-old ex-con'') are left to save things.
All three lead actors work hard, and well, in an effort to lift this patently silly premise to some kind of respectability. Connery, who plays a man who knows too much, seems to want to let us know that he's having a good time and that we shouldn't take it seriously.
Cage, though, is most successful at actually getting a character out of all the noise. He's very funny as a FBI chemical wizard who has no stomach for gunfire, or any other kind of heroics. For Cage, it's a return to the goofy, offbeat characters he does so well - after his Oscar-winning tragedy with ``Leaving Las Vegas.'' It will, at last, get him into a box-office hit.
Even Harris, in the role of the villain, manages to get a bit of sympathetic gray matter showing. Interestingly, the film makes government bureaucrats the real villain - something that was common among Hollywood choices during the Bush years, but has been rare since Clinton's election. Harris is fighting for government benefits for forgotten Vietnam vets - and military men who served in ``covert'' operations.
There's a great car chase early in the film. Director Michael Bay, though, betrays the fact that his background is with music videos and commercials. His editing is so frantic that, in several climactic scenes, it's difficult to tell where the good guys are. The $70 million production doesn't really look that expensive. The finale rocket-shoot looks particularly cartoonish.
There is some diversion, though, in watching three fine actors work steadfastly against the odds - and the noise. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by FRANK MASI /Hollywood Pictures
Sean Connery, left, and Nicolas Cage gingerly attempt to diffuse a
missile containing a deadly chemical toxin in ``The Rock.''
Graphic
MOVIE REVIEW
``The Rock''
Cast: Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage, Ed Harris
Director: Michael Bay
MPAA rating: R (violence)
Mal's rating: two stars and 1/2 stars
Locations: Cinemark, Greenbrier 13, Chesapeake; Circle 4, Main
Gate, Norfolk; Kemps River Crossing, Lynnhaven 8, Pembroke,
Surf-n-Sand, Virginia Beach. by CNB