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The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent: One of the most frustrating types of film it is possible to encounter, in that it contains a couple of interesting ideas buried in a sub-par crust. The best thing about the movie (besides the reliably funny presences of Pedro Pascal and especially Tiffany Haddish) is its willingness to engage in some moderate but pointed critique of actors and their superfans. We get some excellent moments of pure “actor brain” in the inability of the Cage character to relate to the world outside of his chosen vocation, and, far from doing the work of validating the cringeworthy Cage fan club that I expected, Pascal’s character is creepy and invasive in his overconsumption of his chosen idol; moments like Cage responding to the famous sequined pillow of his face with revulsion should get at least a couple audience members to take an askance look at their fancams and Funko dolls. The problem is that this is the approach of the minority of the film, with most of it either hitting more conventional action-comedy beats or bolstering the Crazy Nick Cage stereotype through the actor’s increasingly wacky behavior. This is a meaningless (and probably hilarious) criticism, but Cage’s performance is really atrocious in his self-indulgence (winking to the camera in a way that most of the script takes care not to), and this doesn’t deal with how incongruous his presence is with the film around it. To wit, there’s no reason that the Nick Cage movie is a Central Intelligence-style action comedy other than that the script was obviously outlined to allow for the presence of any actor (and it really would make more parodic sense if it was, like, Dwayne Johnson in the role); the shticky employment of the Cage character as a flailing actor stereotype is jarring when it’s next to scenes of Cage exhibiting lethal competence with guns and cars. The result is a third act that can’t decide which of two annoying wavelengths to ride, though I guess I can award it minor bonus points for doing The Player’s ending better than The Player actually did it (though those points are immediately rescinded for the Ehrlich-channeling Paddington 2 praise that made me want to hide under my seat).

A final thought for the zero of you that will probably see this:

[spoiler]The exit of Haddish and Barinholtz’s characters from the film is one of the most casual and disrespectful disposals of supporting players that I’ve ever seen - like, Kelly Marie Tran in Rise of Skywalker levels. I suppose that can be chalked up to the film having undergone pretty obvious heavy reshoots (necessitating their deletion from a final act that didn’t use them), but it’s still stunning to watch the film just wish them away. You don’t even get a good look at Barinholtz’s dead body![/spoiler]

Interestingly, Cage recently participated in a very well received and surprisingly entertaining AMA on Reddit where he came off as intensely humble but also filled with unpredictable one of a kind responses. When he was asked about the AMA by a reporter, he declined to call people who liked him or the AMA “fans,” instead saying they were film lovers and thanking them for their support. I really liked and respected that response

Yeah I saw that; it's a good framework that, when it comes to this film, makes me think that he's very cognizant of what it's trying to say about his profession and the relationship between its practitioners with the rest of the universe. It's frustrating because that does and doesn't manifest in the finished film, and as an actor he intermittently works towards and away from that!

Oh and if anyone was wondering, the most recent Cage film to get a direct shout-out is [spoiler]Mandy. Sorry, Pig-heads![/spoiler]

I imagine this was written and shot before Pig was released or at least widely seen, right? Kind of a shame, considering there’s ripe material there for a satire and Cage himself was so (rightly) proud of that perf

Unfortunately, I have to pretty much completely agree with Never Cursed's disappointment with this, particularly because the premise as posited by the trailers is so much more interesting than the watered-down version it ends up being:

Spoiler

Instead of Pascal's character actually being a murderous global crime lord who also happens to be Nic(k) Cage superfan — which sets up actual tension and a potentially fun contrast between two characters who are awful in entirely different and incompatible ways and who also genuinely like each other — he's given an excuse that totally drains all that potential and turns the final act into a simple action dynamic that the filmmakers can't effectively deliver. Given the late reveal of Pascal's situation and bizarre abandonment of half the supporting cast that NC points out, I wonder if the original script and/or the first cut of the film carried through on the promise of the setup.

If the script had the courage of its convictions, this could be an enjoyable, unpredictable meta-comedic diversion, but instead ends up only intermittently funny and all-too familiar. Cage riffing on an exaggerated version of his public persona is the best part of the film, but there's little there that gives him the opportunity to do more than riff; still, it is good to see him getting more interesting roles of late, and the film's appreciation of some of the iconic '90s Cage roles that made him such a prominent presence in my teen years made me recognize that I missed him more than I realized during his time wandering the direct-to-video wilderness.

That’s a good comparison, and I remember feeling like that movie didn’t quite know what to do with that dynamic either, so maybe I’m underselling the difficulty of making a successful dark comedy with those kind of characters

I didn’t like this much either but mostly because it’s just such a safe movie. I didn’t think there was anything self-indulgent about Cage’s perf, at least nothing that isn’t intrinsic to the idea of taking this film on. There’s an acknowledgment that it would be impossible to imbue humility in here without forcing it, and balancing that tone away from indulgence but (humbly?) averting that attempt to excuse behavior is the film’s greatest strength, though unfortunately that’s taken to its extreme across the rest of the approach and lands in a mediocre no-risk zone. I enjoyed the interplay with Pascal - he was great, and I even laughed at the first Paddington 2 bit (mostly because it clashes with his other two All-Timers so absurdly well), but it’s one of those gags that’s cheap, unoriginal, and forgettable. Sadly that’s the kind of absurdism we’re given here, in a film that demands more audacious surrealistic narrative or performative gambles. Then again, Cage may not have agreed to sign on (ironically) if these endangered his own image without a safety net, so perhaps it was destined to be a shrugfest.

The action-adventure genre of the film itself works well though- I don’t really understand why it wouldn’t for this actor. Cage is known for taking on films like this to pay the bills, and even within the film there’s a meta-plot about trying to withhold these contrived genre trappings into an Adult Art Film but they just can’t keep them out of that or this. I can’t think of a better genre that would allow a film like this to be played as safe as it feels it needs to be, but I can’t imagine others working any better either.