Awesome / The Rock

• Hummell and his team stealing the rockets from the base. While Hummell distracts the main guard under the guise of an inspection team, the rest of his unit launch a swift assault that, in a few minutes, has knocked out pretty much the entire base garrison with expert precision, showing how well-trained they are under Hummell. He lost a man in the process locked in the vault with a vial of the gas but otherwise, it was a near-perfect military operation that proves Hummel's tactical brilliance. The topper: the front gate guards salute Hummell and his men as they leave with zero idea they've been robbed right under their noses.
• Mason's chase scene through San Francisco. Utilizing damn near every related trope in existence, Mason, in a stol- BORROWED humvee, leads SF's finest on a merry chase, taking advantage of the humvee's sturdy construction to plow through any and all obstacle in his path. The chasing police cruisers aren't as fortunate, as they tumble and flip on power lines, smash into buildings, and otherwise get humiliated by Mason. It culminates in Mason derailing one of SF's iconic railcars, which careens down the street and smashes into Goodspeed's commandeered ferrari. The whole sequence is a glorious execution of the best tropes a car chase can offer.
• The Green Smoke scene. Goodspeed has just killed the last of the marines, he is lying on the floor after injecting himself with atropine after possible exposure to VX gas. He turns his head weakly and sees the Golden Gate Bridge, the sun illuminating it. He remembers SEAL Commander Anderson's words "when he neutralizes the threat, we launch green flares and we wait for the cavalry". Goodspeed realizes that jets are inbound to level the island (under the assumption that he and Mason are dead and the VX threat is still active) and he only has seconds to call off the strike, so what does he do? He forces himself to stand up, likely in immense pain from the needle in his heart, pulls two flares out of his pocket and lights them up. He stumbles out of the door and falls to his knees facing the San Francisco Bay while a rousing score plays. Waving the flares desperately, he is spotted at the last minute by a crew stationed on the shoreline and the incoming airstrike is narrowly called off, and a flight of F/A-18s screams past his head (not before the lead plane deploys his bombs, the explosion of which misses the cells but still launches Goodspeed into the water).
• When Hummel becomes desperate enough to threaten a hostage to try to get Goodspeed and Mason to surrender and turn over the guidance chips for the rockets, Stanley pulls them out of his pocket with a grim look on his face. Mason immediately takes them from Stanley and smashes them to bits, then calmly goes out to confront Hummel knowing he has exactly zero leverage.
• An unarmed Mason calmly facing a group of heavily armed Marines, telling Hummel he's a "fucking idiot", and not flinching when Hummel puts a gun in his face.
  • When Hummel justifies his actions by quoting Thomas Jefferson's famous quote "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants," Mason immediately retorts "Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious, according to Oscar Wilde." It's so brilliant a putdown that Hummel rifle-butts the back of Mason's head. "Thank you for proving my point," Mason adds.
• After taking crap from Mason over his lack of combat experience, Goodspeed proves his real strength when he starts defusing one of the VX gas rockets. When Mason starts to move the chemical balls, Goodspeed snaps at him "Do not move that!" and Mason looks both thrown and partly scared to realize what he's holding.
• Goodspeed becoming a Badass:
  • For example, Captain Darrow comes in while Goodspeed is disarming one of the last rockets. Darrow starts to advance around the rocket towards Goodspeed, who backs away around the other side of the rocket.
    Goodspeed: (holding up the missile's payload of VX) "You shoot me, I drop this—we're both dead."
    Darrow: "Come on, come on. Don't be scared. I won't hurt ya. Come on."
    Goodspeed: "You know how this shit works?"
    Darrow: (pulling out a combat knife) "You know how this shit works?!" (stops directly in front of the missile) "I don't need the gun." (Drops the gun but keeps the knife) "Come on, let's play."
    Goodspeed: "Listen, I think we got started off on the wrong foot. Stan Goodspeed, FBI. Uh, let's talk music. Do you like the Elton John song Rocket Man?"
    Darrow: "I don't like soft-ass shit."
    Goodspeed: "Oh, you don't? Oh... well, I only bring it up, because... it's you. You're the Rocket Man!" (flips the switch that fires the missile, which smashes into Darrow and throws him out the window) "How do you like how that shit works?!"
• Goodspeed later killing the Big Bad Captain Frye by shoving a chemical ball down his throat. "Eat that, you fuck!"
• Commander Anderson despite outnumbered and in an extremely disadvantageous position, refusing to surrender himself and his men, relying on Hummel's code of honour.
  • Even when severly outgunned and dying as flies, the SEALs go down fighting. Anderson in particular is shot, only to drag himself across the shower floor and fire his sidearm before a second salvo finishes him off.
• General Hummel's demands, no action villain clichés, he cuts straight to the point managing to simultaneously guilt-trip and intimidate all present and make them aware of the threat he poses.
  You alert the media, I launch the gas. You refuse payment, I launch the gas. You have 40 hours until noon, day after tomorrow to arrange transfer of the money. I am aware of your counter-measure; you know and I know it doesn't stand a chance. Hummel from Alcatraz, out.
  (slams the phone down)
• The Bait-and-Switch moment when Major Baxter seems to join the mutiny against Hummel, only to turn and start shooting at the mutineers.
• The fact that Mason successfully escaped from Alcatraz fucking island. At the time of his incarceration, the penitentiary on the island was considered one of the most inescapable prisons in the world, with numerous attempts but no actual successes. This was exactly why the US Government chose to hold Mason, a highly trained British Spy, at the maximum security facility in 1962. And yet, a year later, he still managed to break out of his cell, get past all of the guards, and then wait in the tunnels under the island for three days for the right moment to be able to safely swim back to the mainland. However, due to his status as a ghost, very few people would ever know of this achievement, and as far as the public believes, nobody ever successfully escaped from The Rock alive.