7/10 A meta action/comedy with Nicolas Cage playing Nicolas Cage, “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” is a fun, bromantic comedy that doesn’t take itself too seriously and if you are a fan of Mr. Cage, you will thoroughly enjoy this wild romp. When Nicolas Cage was offered this film, he was hesitant to take the role because he didn’t want to play himself in a film that just ripped on him the whole time and portrayed him as a joke. Thankfully, after he read the script he saw that screenwriters Tom Gormican (who is also the director) and Kevin Etten co-wrote a script that paid homage to Cage’s career and lovingly showed how big of fans they were. Cage started off hot in Hollywood, garnering praise and winning an Oscar for Best Actor for 1995’s “Leaving Las Vegas”. He also made waves for his leading performances in films like “Raising Arizona”, “The Rock”, “Con Air”, “Adaptation” (for which he was nominated again for Best Actor, but lost) and more. From the 1980s to the early 2000s, Cage was at the top of his game. However, due to some real life financial issues and tons of debt, Cage started taking roles in nearly anything he was offered and he went from an Oscar winning actor to somewhat of a joke with a string of straight to DVD debacles and even his theatrical releases were widely mocked with stinkers like “The Wicker Man”, “Left Behind”, “Season of the Witch”, “Prisoners of the Ghostland” and other embarrassments. Luckily for Cage, he finally paid off his debts and has had a complete renaissance over the past few years with terrific performances in memorable films such as “Mandy”, “Color Out of Space” and one of the best films of his career, last year’s “Pig”. This film honors his career while poking playful fun at some of his shortcomings and including references to his biggest and smallest films. Cage fully embraces the meta aspects and the film has several hilarious moments, which I won’t spoil for you here. The plot is silly but fun and the pacing works well with its hour and 45-minute running time. As far as what doesn’t work, some of the action was underwhelming, the film is completely unrealistic with a rather absurd plot and the ending is rather predictable. That being said, the main relationship between Cage and Javi Gutierrez (Pedro Pascal) is the true heart and emotion of the film and their relationship takes some unexpected turns. Most self-serious actors would never take a role like this but Cage has the sense of humor to take on such a film. He purposely overacts in scenes to poke fun at himself and then delivers some genuinely strong acting when his family is in danger in the film, showing his range of talent and self-awareness. If you are looking for a fun film that doesn’t take itself too seriously and that has the best film title of 2022, look no further than the Cagiest Cage film of all time.
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