History YMMV / TheRock

* HilariousInHindsight: Early in the film, Todd Louiso's character mocks Goodspeed for spending an exorbitant sum of money on an LP when he could've bought the same album on CD for a fraction of the cost. Louiso later played Dick in ''Film/HighFidelity'', a vinyl purist who spends almost all of his spare time (and disposable income) collecting and listening to obscure records, and views [=CDs=] as a marketing scam.

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: The president and his advisors for never even ''considering'' giving into Hummel’s incredibly reasonable demands to simply do what they should have done in the first place. Though in total fairness, taking an island full of hostages and threatening to shoot nerve gas into San Francisco does diminish the reasonableness somewhat, and it's not like they can take the chance that he's bluffing once it gets to that point.

* RootingForTheEmpire: Hummel is very easy to root for. He only uses violent force when he absolutely has to, takes no joy in the methods he's been forced to use, is fighting for an unequivocally righteous cause (getting financial aid for the surviving families of subordinates who died under his command while on black ops missions the government has disavowed) and ultimately reveals [[spoiler: he was never planning to launch the rockets anyway and even aids the heroes in disabling them in his dying moments.]] It really says something that the film resorts to [[spoiler:his henchmen betraying and killing him]] to make sure you're rooting for the right side in the climax.

* NightmareFuel: One of Hummel's men falling victim to the VX gas during the raid. Seeing his genuine panic as his body begins to boil is pretty unnerving, as is the fact that his fellow Marines can do nothing for him. Later Goodspeed describes exactly what happened to the Marine (and what will happen to thousands of people if even one of the rockets is launched) in gruesome detail:

** Armed with this description, the audience can appreciate exactly what is happening at the climax when Capt. Frye is force-fed a gas pellet and his body instantly absorbs a dose of the chemical powerful enough to kill over a thousand people.

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: The president and his advisors for never even ''considering'' giving into Hummel’s incredibly reasonable demands to simply do what they should have done in the first place.

* OverrankedSoldier: Hummel introduces Crisp as a ''Gunnery'' Sergeant, a rank that usually requires a minimum of 13-15 years of service in the Marine Corps, and the average age of a "Gunny" is 35 (Creator/BokeemWoodbine was 22 at the time the film was released). Even allowing for a BattlefieldPromotion and Crisp's outstanding performance during Desert Storm, his actor is still ridiculously young to be holding such a rank.

* ''Film/TheRock'':

* MagnificentBastard: [[FourStarBadass Brigadier General Francis X. "Frank" Hummel]], disgusted with the lack of respect for [[AFatherToHisMen his dead servicemen]], tries to [[WellIntentionedExtremist force the American government]] to pay the families of the fallen reparations by stealing [[DeadlyGas deadly VX gas]] to threaten a terrorist attack on San Francisco should they fail to meet his terms. Predicting the Pentagon's every move, Hummel sets up a stronghold in Alcatraz and manages to easily trap and dispatch the US Navy SEAL team sent after him. Finding himself unable to use his gas-carrying missiles on civilians, even in defeat Hummel makes preparations to get his men to safety while [[GracefulLoser ready to face the consequences alone]].

* OverrankedSoldier: Hummel introduces Crisp as a ''Gunnery'' Sergeant, a rank that usually requires a minimum of 13-15 years of service in the Marine Corps, and the average age of a "Gunny" is 35 (Creator/BokeemWoodbine was 22 at the time the film was released). Even allowing for BattlefieldPromotions and Crisp's outstanding performance during Desert Storm, his actor is still ridiculously young to be holding such a rank.

* NightmareFuel: One of Hummel's men falling victim to the VX gas during the raid. Seeing his genuine panic as his body begins to boil is pretty unnerving, as is the fact that his fellow marines can do nothing for him.
-->'''Goodspeed''' (to Mason, handling a canister to disarm it): The second you don't respect this, '''it kills you'''.
-->'''Goodspeed:''' It's one of those things we wish we could dis-invent.

* OneSceneWonder -
** Gen. Pederson.
-->"Seventy. Seventy thousand dead. A drop of VX hits the floor is lethal up to a hundred feet. One teaspoon of this shit detonated on the atmosphere will kill every living thing within an 8 block radius. Get the point?"

-->"How does one weigh human life?"

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Music/HansZimmer's entire soundtrack, most notably "A Grave Injustice", "Hummel Gets The Rockets", and "Shower Room Massacre".

** There's another theory which posits that this movie takes place within the same universe as Creator/MichaelBay's ''Film/Armageddon1998''. In addition to Bay directing both, Stanley Anderson plays the U.S. President in both movies; yet his president is never named in either. The movies were released (and presumably set in) 1996 and 1998, respectively. Both years fall within the same presidential term (which in real life was UsefulNotes/BillClinton's second). The theory stipulates that Anderson is playing the same president in both films and therefore the films are set in the same universe.

** There's another theory which posits that this movie takes place within the same universe as Creator/MichaelBay's ''{{Film/Armageddon}}''. In addition to Bay directing both, Stanley Anderson plays the U.S. President in both movies; yet his president is never named in either. The movies were released (and presumably set in) 1996 and 1998, respectively. Both years fall within the same presidential term (which in real life was UsefulNotes/BillClinton's second). The theory stipulates that Anderson is playing the same president in both films and therefore the films are set in the same universe.