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• 1080p High Definition

• Outtakes

• Audio Commentary with Michael Bay, Jerry Bruckheimer and Nicolas Cage

• The Rock World Premiere Featurette

• Interactive Menus

• Navy Seals on the Range Featurette

Special Feature Rating:

Dr. Stanley Goodspeed (Nicolas Cage) lives the sweet life in Chicago as a chemist for the FBI. He spends his days inspecting suspicious packages, collecting Beatles albums and stringing his long-suffering girlfriend along. His world will change in an instant as he is assigned to investigate a hostage crisis on Alcatraz Island that involves some nasty chemical weapons aimed directly at San Francisco. To make matters worse, the FBI has teamed him up with a mysterious federal prisoner, John Mason (Sean Connery). Being the only man to ever escape from the infamous prison, Mason has special, inside knowledge of Alcatraz. He’s the only man who can help Goodspeed and a team of Navy Seals storm the prison and whisk the deadly chemical weapons to safety.

The Rock works on a number of levels, but primarily for me, because of how purely entertaining it is. The action set-pieces are well crafted and, although completely over the top, manage to move the story along nicely. The various actors in the film all appear to be having a great time and that translates effectively to the audience. Sean Connery is remarkable in that at the age of 65, he comes off as youthful and rather intimidating. Nicolas Cage is effective and Ed Harris, as the intense General Hummel, is fantastically brooding. All in all, The Rock is a thoroughly entertaining film with outstanding action sequences and exceptional character interplay. If for some strange reason you have yet to see the film, you’ve been missing out on one of the best pure action movies of the last several decades. Recommended!

Story Rating:

Disney continues to impress with their commitment to high-bitrate AVC encodes. The Rock benefits from this with its frenetic camera movements and action scenes. There is never a trace of pixelation or picture breakup and colors are exquisite. I compared this Blu-ray encode to the picture on my Criterion edition of The Rock and the increase in detail and resolution is stunning. The Blu-ray edition also appeared much more film like and showed a vast improvement in shadow detail and black levels. Being over a decade old, The Rock is shot in a manner that might not appeal to those who are on the lookout for grain-free digitally enhanced film. The film has been kept in excellent condition, without a trace of dirt or any print-related issues. Ultimately, this AVC encode faithfully recreates the cinematic experience that was intended. The Rock looks amazing on Blu-ray.

Picture Rating:

If the improvements in picture aren’t enough to make this disc a must-buy, the stellar PCM 5.1 track on The Rock should seal the deal. I did a few A/B comparisons between this track and the Dolby Digital track present on the disc, and the results are dramatic. Overall fidelity has been improved with a clarity to the mix that has been missing on DVD all these years. Conversational dialogue is also greatly improved. I noticed an element of hissing in the sharp consonants of the Dolby Digital version. This was completely eliminated in PCM - - every syllable was intelligible and crystal clear. The biggest upgrade comes in the form of the overall atmosphere of the mix. Once again, PCM created a real sense of three-dimensionality that just wasn’t there in Dolby Digital. Directional effects were much more dramatic in PCM with gunfire and low frequency effects packing a solid and gut-wrenching punch. The Rock is reference grade!

Sound Rating:

Overall Rating:

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