#32 — The Rock
This is an ongoing illustrated countdown of my 49 1/2 most essential action movies, which DON’T mean they’re the best, but DO mean I gotta have ’em. They are the best though, mostly. Last week I talked about a scorching hot action fairy tale of crime and punishment, Full Contact.
I think the attempts to psychoanalyze Michael Bay are much more interesting than he is as a filmmaker. I’m actually surprised by the varying takes on his “best” work, or what it is people ultimately want out of the Bay experience. It’s my belief that this is just a result of people trying to make sense of his madness, trying to mold the idea of him and his unruly powers into something with a clear purpose.
His work displays a craft and presentation that makes his competition look small and cheap by comparison. He also has a propensity for gleeful morbidity that sometimes undermines genuine human emotion, suspense, and any thoughtful observations about our existence on this rock called Earth. I don’t buy this idea that he’s some kind of misunderstood, misanthropic genius. I also don’t think the Transformers saga is evidence that he’s some kind of hack. Furthermore, I’m not here to tell you what his best movie his. I just want to talk about why it’s obviously The Rock — you moron, you absolute nincompoop.
There’s generally two Michael Bays to reckon with. One is a Pissing Calvin car decal come to life, and the other made this movie. I’ll call him Rock Bay — also the name of his Old Spice scent. This iteration of Bay demonstrates a more formalist approach to storytelling that’s comparable to all those prestige action thrillers that were so trendy at the time. The Hunt For Red October, Patriot Games, that sort of thing. As Rock Bay, he can open a film with the legendary Ed Harris visiting his wife’s grave in dramatic rain, but also have Nic Cage call Tony Todd “Rocket Man” before firing a rocket into his chest. So it’s going to feel like a real movie with coherent plot lines and emotions and things, but it’ll still have that Rock Bay scent. You gotta understand how potent that is, like a V.X. poison gas. I think that’s the key to all this.
Achieving that delicate balance creates harmony between the old school and the new. You have to consider things like tone. With Bayhem on its best behavior, characters don’t have this deranged disconnect from reality. Now you can still have those great movie moments, like Sean Connery disappearing through a furnace, only to reappear and announce the title of the film. He’s welcomed us to The Rock! We’re here! That’s often the line between procedural thrillers and something for the popcorn crowd (I’m not using “popcorn” as a slur here, as I often indulge in a bowl, but its consumption represents a certain mindset when watching a certain type of movie, so I think you understand what I’m trying to say). It’s just the right level of crowd pleasing.
Watching The Rock in 2020, it might feel like a bit of a throwback, but that’s not to say it’s quaint. It’s still a large-scale, explosive ride. Alcatraz is a cavernous castle, with tunnel systems and mine carts. The sets look fantastic, even when they’re blowing up. Another positive to Bay not showing us how many cinematic hot dogs he can shove in his mouth at once is that you begin to notice things like the controlled pacing, and how good the performances are. There’s such a confidence to his directing. He introduces the main players in ways that demonstrate their expertise, the gravity of the situation, and how their psyche will handle the pressure of destroying or saving a city full of people from a terrorist attack. Getting to the island is almost a slow-burn, but it never feels dull. There’s lots of fun exchanges between Cage, Connery, and others that help to liven up the typically serious minded War Room planning scenes you get in these movies. It’s just Bay being patient and cranking us to the top of the metaphorical rollercoaster until we reach that amazing confrontation between General Hummel’s men and the SEAL team (led by Hollywood’s greatest soldier, Michael Biehn), then what happens? He pulls an Executive Decision and lets the whole plan blow up in their faces.
They spar with each other about honor, duty to country, and sworn oaths — AND IT’S ELECTRIC. These characters and this exchange don’t happen in almost any other film Bay has made. The guy from The Office can’t stand next to a yelling Ed Harris and Optimus Prime isn’t gonna soil his uniform with motor oil, that’s a Calvin Bay movie. This is Rock Bay. And Rock Bay will let heroes die in a blaze of glory, only to let Nic Cage and a retired James Bond pick up the pieces with intelligence and MacGyver improv skills.
The cast is great all around, and filled with those actors you see everywhere, but always take for granted (Tony Todd! Raymond Cruz! Bokeem Woodbine!). Cage and Connery in particular are a really fun, unconventional pairing for a movie like this. I don’t know what level of input Cage had on his character, but he has the freedom to play things with that loose vulnerability he’s known for, and it really pays off. Stanley Goodspeed (great name) gets scared and will openly admit that to other characters, and they’ll even understand and give him a little slack for it. As an expert on chemical weapons, he’s also very capable in one particular field and he’ll use that to lean on. When legendary soldier/spy John Mason (Connery) gives him grief, he’ll push back — and the two eventually gain a mutual respect for each other.
As it becomes a race against time, we get the typical-of-the-genre boardroom drama over what to do with the hostages, but yet again, Bay aces this stuff. His hallmark presidential speeches (delivered by Stanley Anderson, who also played the president in Armageddon), the silhouettes of fighter pilots running to answer the call, the exquisite shots of military aircraft. Are fighter pilots to Michael Bay what doves are to John Woo? He has his own bag of tricks. All this amplified heroism and duty is a nice escape from our current reality. Watching some of this now is a little jarring. In our world, it’d be something like:
“Folks, it’s a tough call, a real bad call. First you have these people over here, didn’t do anything wrong, just want to see some things, now they’re stuck over here, they’re scared, but…you have other people, too. You have other people, and they don’t want to die either, and then you throw in this invisible enemy, this V-EX gas, I think they’re calling it? I’ve had a few ex’s so I know something about this. Folks, let me tell you, we are doing things, tough things, but I’ve been talking to very smart people and they all say “be wise. BE WISE.” so you know I listen hard about this. I take their advice STRONGLY and we’re still thinking it through and you will know what happens”.
That hits too close to home, sorry I brought it up. The White House of Cinema has been soiled. Maybe I’m beginning to understand 6 Underground a little more.
Bay’s ability to balance his more showy action bona fides with real drama, suspense, and even humor (and so early in his career) is really commendable. There’s a genuine human center in the middle of all the action bravado and it never gets drowned out. It might feel silly to say this, but I don’t think there’s been a movie like this before or since. It has serious minded Clancy style thrillers in its head, the care-free spirit of the ‘90s in it’s heart, and an analog visual flair that slipped through the door right before The Matrix ushered in a new millennium of filmmaking techniques and ideas (contrast the paranoia of its plot with the seemingly inconsequential nature of government secrets in The Rock). It has a distinct quality (for lack of a better word) that’s been lost in time, and we can’t go back. I’m sure 9/11 also had a hand in forever changing the DNA of these kind of thrillers, but that’s another topic for someone else to write.
I’m searching for the modern equivalent of what The Rock offers and only the Mission Impossible films come to mind, but the Cruise/Cage swap leads to a profoundly different experience. The action and craft of those films is too crisp and clean to compare. And nobody like Cage is headlining blockbuster action (mainly because there’s nobody like Cage). If I have to pick one Michael Bay movie for the rest of time, it’s The Rock — not even a question.
