The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

The trailers for this year's THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT promised a clever and fun meta exercise, starring everyone's favorite cinematic madman, Nicolas Cage.  Twenty years ago, the actor actually did appear in a clever and fun meta exercise called ADAPTATION, which was written by maniac scribe genius Charlie Kaufman.   It's obvious almost immediately that director Tom Gormican and his co-writer Kevin Etten have far less ambitious goals with their movie, which manages to be both warm- and lighthearted to a fault.   A film content with easy Hollywood satire, with a seeming avoidance of anything heady.

It's a great idea in search of a movie.   Nic (playing a version of himself), of late suffering a lackluster career, a divorce, and potential estrangement from his daughter, is hard up enough to accept  $1 million from a mysterious, yet amiable billionaire/Cage superfan from Spain named Javi (Pedro Pascal) to attend his birthday party.  Javi also has notions of his guest starring in a movie based on a screenplay he's penned.  When Cage arrives in Majorca, he is accosted by the CIA, who suspect Javi is behind the recent kidnapping of the daughter of a politician, one he allegedly wants to drop out of an upcoming election.  Agent Etten (Tiffany Haddish) and cohorts recruit the actor to get close to Javi and learn the whereabouts of the abductee.  The truth is a bit more complicated.

As that paragraph went on, you noticed that the plot got more involved.  That UNBEARABLE WEIGHT.... spends so much time within it is one of the film's issues.  It plays like any number of forgettable actioners, some of which Cage has starred in.  Had Gormican tried to at least parody this genre we may have had something.  Instead, the movie takes the plot too seriously and forgets to be the the self-referential head trip it should've been.  And had he stuck with Nic and Javi's bromance a bit more (and with better dialogue), we might've had a nice little character study, even though Cage has stated that the man he plays here is not all that similar to him in real life.

The jokes thud left and right.  I don't recall much that was above the level of a sitcom.  The wall scaling scene is a perfect example.  There's also a late bit with Cage pretending to be a mafioso that just doesn't land.  The movie even has a younger, CGI de-aged Cage periodically appear to himself for inspiration, to little amusement. 

What makes Nicolas Cage such an interesting actor are his unpredictable choices, his spontaneity.  What makes him, Nic.  The movie reduces his eccentricity to a few wild screams. 

But what's really lacking is an edge.  The Hollywood ribs are mild.  The subplot of Cage's family woes is likewise.   This should've been a more caustic, biting treatise on image and id.  But even as a "fun" comedy/adventure, it feels too safe and cozy.  Had it not been for the barrage of random profanity and a few lewd lines, this could've easily been a PG-13 movie.

If you are a fan, you probably should still watch THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT.  And after all the praise in this movie for PADDINGTON 2,  I feel compelled and obligated to add it to my queue.