The-Reel-McCoy -- The Rock

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The Rock

This movie is wildly entertaining. It is also very suspensful. Perhaps best of all though is the wonderful view that we are able to have of The Rock, or Alcatraz Island. We are taken into the depths of this famous site and lead through its underbelly. This movie was actually filmed on Alcatraz and provides some wonderful footage.

The acting was very good thanks to extremely talented performances from Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage, and Ed Harris. The characters of these three were able to be very well developed. However, some of the supporting cast was a little weak. Also, the character of Cage's girlfriend, Carla Pestalozzi (Vanessa Marcil) sadly was poorly developed and seemed rather mindless.

One strange aspect of the movie is that it takes several bold liberties in claiming what the government has covered up. It is interesting to see how many moviewriters are beginning to share these beliefs with the writers of The Star, The National Enquirer, and The Globe. Or maybe some of the writers from these magazines are starting to write movies!

One dissapointing aspect the movie was how characters in the movie just seemed to know facts off of the top of their head that no one could have known. For instance, towards the end of the movie, a huge bomb engulfs most of Alcatraz Island. Amazingly, without even being able to see anyone but himself and John Mason, Stanley Goodspeed (Nicolas Cage) immediately knows that all 81 hostages are perfectly fine!