As I was watching this, I began to realize that this film is sort of like Jonze’s Adaptation, which Nic Cage also starred in, but this one has less heart. It’s got this constant need to wink at the camera and tell us how meta it is and how it’s meta quality is cool and funny.
I know that Nic Cage playing Nic Cage was the draw for the film, but the best thing about the film is BY FAR the bromance between Pascal and Cage. Those scenes were always the most enjoyable to watch and felt the most genuine.
The film makes a meta joke about turning the film that is character-driven into kind of a dumb action movie, but it still ends up being that kind of movie in the end.
Maybe I’m just a bit jaded about these self-referential Hollywood movies. Look, the film is enjoyable, but it just didn’t reach the highs I think it could have because it wanted to wink at the audience too much. Face/Off is a better example of a film playing into the celebrity persona of Nic Cage without having to tell you that it’s doing that. Adaptation is a better example of a person writing a script that starts affecting the movie. Both have great performances by Cage.
Cage does a fine job here, too, and it is cool to see Cage play a fictional version of himself, but the film just doesn’t have the substance to make it something great. Instead, it’s a movie filled with old, forced Reddit memes and the humor gets pretty old pretty fast.
Oh, and the de-aged Nic Cage is the stuff of nightmares.
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent Review
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