*Please Note* I have decided to put all Nicholas Cage movies in their own category. Since they are separate from the main reviews I will also be judging them a little differently so you may notice some higher ratings in this category.
Synopsis
In this action-packed comedy, Nicolas Cage plays Nick Cage, channeling his iconic characters as he’s caught between a superfan (Pedro Pascal) and a CIA agent (Tiffany Haddish).
Who is the Audience for This Movie?
Nicholas Cage fans.
Review
Lets put out a hypothetical, its 1997 (if you were alive then you can probably picture this better) and you just watched Face/Off. Your walking out of the theater when a portal appears and a time traveler steps out of it. He only has time to give you one piece of information about the future and he decides to tell you that in 2022 Nicholas Cage will star in a movie about his career and a wax figure of him as Caster Troy will be in that movie. He jumps back through his portal immediately and your left standing there with that information. Do you believe him? Do you try to rationalize that it did not happen? or Do you wonder where our world has gone wrong or right?.
After watching this movie I am still in disbelief it actually exists. The memeification of a handful of Cage’s performances has come to such a point that a new level of movie meta has been achieved.
With that all said is it actually a good movie? to be honest I am not sure. As a whole its pedestrian in its story structure (easy to guess ending) and the side characters try way to hard to be as whacky as Cage so they manage to look worse then they actually are. If this movie were about any other actor then Nicholas Cage it would have been completely awful. I could be biased in that opinion but this is another case to make that he is one of the greatest actors of all time. Playing yourself could seem like the ultimate masturbatory vanity project yet it never comes off like he is big upping himself because it does get self deprecating at times. They focus more on his life choices then his ego and the scenes he acts against himself are fascinating.
I would feel bad if I did not mention Pedro Pascal, he provides the perfect foil to Cage by playing the straight character in order to giving Cage room to have fun with his acting choices.
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is the ultimate Nicholas Cage fan movie. It is not my favorite by far but I am happy something like this still exists in a world of franchise cinema.
