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THE ROCK – Nick Glennie-Smith, Hans Zimmer, Harry Gregson-Williams
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
One of the major summer blockbusters of 1996, The Rock is possibly the epitome of mid-1990s cinematic excess. Directed by Michael Bay and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson, it is a massive action epic of ridiculous proportions, self-important and serious but also somehow incredibly good fun, and it helped solidify Bay and Bruckheimer’s hyper-kinetic, testosterone-fueled, purposefully stylized aesthetic as the default for box-office smashes for several years thereafter. The film stars Nicolas Cage as FBI chemical weapons specialist Stanley Goodspeed, who is called into action to stop General Francis Hummel (Ed Harris). Hummel is a highly decorated Marine who has become increasingly bitter over the U.S. government’s refusal to acknowledge or compensate the families of soldiers killed during covert military operations. Hummel and a group of similarly disillusioned Marines steal a cache of VX nerve gas rockets, seize control of the former prison on Alcatraz Island, and take a group of tourists hostage, threatening to launch the weapons at San Francisco unless the government pays $100 million in reparations to the dead soldiers’ families. Read more…
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