November 12th, 2012 
Dane Sager 
What The Film?! is a weekly column exclusive to Under The Gun Review that brings to light the plot holes Hollywood hoped you’d never notice. Written by comedy writer Dane Sager, this column shows no mercy to films that try and pull the proverbial wool over our eyes.
If you know a film with major plot holes that you feel needs to be exposed, tell us! Email utgjames@gmail.com with the subject “What The Film” and we’ll try to get your suggestion featured on the site.
This Week’s Movie: The Rock
My girlfriend and I went to the Atlanta VegFest today. It took place in a studio/loft/warehouse that looked suspiciously similar to the home of Michael Westen from Burn Notice. Among the chaos of tofu presses, vegan cheese, and baked goods, I met another who had been brought to the VegFest by his girlfriend and spent most of the time wandering aimlessly till we were introduced. We talked about music, video games, comics, and movies. Nicolas Cage was of course brought up, but I wasn’t the one who brought him up. Nicolas Cage was brought up by my new found friend independently. Here is week two of UTG’s NICOLAS CAGE NOVEMEBER.
There are two types of people in the world. Nicolas Cage fans and liars
The Rock is pretty great. It’s the only Michael Bay movie to be rated fresh by Rotten Tomatoes at 67%. James Cameron (aka the highest selling director of all time) has gone on record to say that he has analyzed this movie over and over again to figure out how the action was shot so well. It’s script was re-written by industry veterans Quentin Tarantino, Jonathan Hensleigh, and Aaron Sorkin, the result being a fun, exciting, well done action movie with a couple James Bond references hidden inside it. Not only that, it’s the very first action movie to be released by the Criterion Collection, a distributor of Art-House films. It’s an action Classic and it justifies being played on a different channel on cable every week. It’s awesome.
Plays any song over this gif. It’s wonderful
The movie is about a Navy Seal team and a weapons specialist who has never seen combat and are led into the prison Alcatraz by an older SAS agent who had escaped from the prison three decades prior. Alcatraz had been taken over by a group of terrorists who are threatening to launch biological weapons on San Francisco. In the movie, they describe Sean Connery’s character Mason as a “escape artist” and that he’s the only one who can lead them into the prison. It’s possible through reverse engineering that he could do this, but that’s still a flimsy plan.
When reaching his escape point, we’re presented with a small vent containing bursts of fire, large metal gears and pistons, something that has no apparent reason to exist. Mason says he memorized the timing and rolls through the vent flawlessly, unlocking a door to let the rest of the Seal Team in. Why would he need to memorize the timing in order to escape if he could just go through that door right next to it?
“Come on, John. Are you just doing things the hard way for funzies or what?”
In one scene, Nicolas Cage’s character asks an intimidating grunt character if he likes the song Rocket Man by Elton John. The bad guy, who is clearly in this situation trying to kill Nicolas Cage, gets offended and angrily states that he doesn’t like “soft-ass shit”. Hey, Mr. Grunt. You’re in this room trying to kill him and you’re so insecure about what other people think about your musical taste that you immediately attack it. You’re about to kill this guy. I remember seeing Hitch in theaters a long time ago and when Will Smith and Kevin James kiss, a guy in the back of the theater yelled “THAT SHIT IS SO GAY”. It astounds me how insecure people can be with themselves; by not attacking it, they’re afraid that their indifference means that they’re gay or that they like Elton John. As if there was some person in the audience in that theater that thought “Hey, there’s a guy in the back who’s not yelling at the screen, I bet he likes this shit!”
All in all, those are my only complaints about this movie. I literally was having problems picking this movie apart. Well, the gay stereotype hair stylist was offensive and stupid, but Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery are great, as you’d expect (It’s a movie with Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery, that alone should sell you on this) and Ed Harris’ villain is incredible. His story is sad and you ultimately agree with everything he’s saying and doing this for, it’s just that his actions that are wrong. It’s a scary character and one you don’t really forget about. My girlfriend hated the movie, not because it’s Nicolas Cage, but because she was genuinely afraid and tensed up during the movie. This movie actually got to her.
Dane has been having this weird toothache over the past few days. You can hear him bitch about it on Twitter or Tumblr!
GIFS COURTESY OF GIFOLASCAGE
- What The Film!? – Diamonds Are Forever - July 8, 2013
- What The Film!? – Independence Day - July 1, 2013
- What The Film!? – Armageddon - June 24, 2013
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