nickscagepage-blog - Tumblr blog

[nickscagepage-blog]

Red Rock West Review

Year: 1993

Genre: Westernish thriller

Plot Summary:

Nic Cage returned to Wyoming from the Marines with a leg injury that is making it hard for him to find work. After being turned down for a job due to said injury he spends the rest of his money on gas and asks whereabouts he can find a job. The guy in the gas station suggests he go to Red Rock. He arrives there and goes to the bar (the only establishment in town) where he gets a coffee and looks for work. The bar owner mistakes him for a hitman and he plays along as the movie twists and turns unpredictably to an exciting climax.

Review:

Red Rock west is definitely one of the less known gems that Nic Cage has been in. It takes place in rural Wyoming, and while the movie doesn’t seem to have had a huge budget the scenery and setting are spot on in creating a great feeling that fits the movie very well. This is one of Nic Cage’s earlier gems, before he was known as the national treasure that he is today. Most people don’t seem to know this one, and I would definitely say it is underrated. The movie is kind of dark, with Nic Cage living out of his car, and getting involved with bad people in order to make some money. We see a typical sort of Nic Cage heroic character here though, he is offered a large sum of money to kill the man’s wife, but instead warns her. This character is similar in character to what he plays in Con Air, but in that movie he is just trying to get home, and in a much more over the top situation, whereas here is trying to make it through life. This movie starts tense and just gets tenser, and there are plot twists that you don’t see coming until they hit, and change the course of the movie significantly. Red Rock is an interesting setting for the movie, it’s a small town, and we only meet a few characters from the town, but there is a feeling that there aren’t that many people around to meet, but yet Nic Cage constantly goes back to Red Rock. Every time you think that this is the last time that he’ll be back or he’s finally leaving for good it turns out that all roads lead back. Everything that can go wrong for Nic Cage does, but he rolls with the punches and pushes through.

Verdict: 8/10 Quite good

Nic Cage’s Acting: 7/10

Should you watch it?: It’s not to miss; not constant action, but it pulls you in

Iconic Moments:

Riding on the top of the truck

Almost getting hit by the car and talking the guy into giving him a ride

The Boys:

D: 👍

S: 👎

W: 👍

[nickscagepage-blog]

Adaptation Review

Year: 2002

Genre: Drama

Plot Summary:

Nic Cage plays twin brothers in this drama about the making of the movie you are watching. The main character is a screenwriter trying to adapt a book into a movie. He is having trouble turning the book into a movie, and ends up writing himself into it. There is tension with his twin brother who lives with him, as their personalities are very different and clash. The book he is adapting is about a memoir by about a New Yorker author and her experience interviewing getting to know a man in Florida who is a botanist of sorts and very knowledgeable about the ghost orchid. The plot of both the book, the screenplay, Nic Cage’s relationship to the author of the book, and the author’s relationship to her subject all twist and turn and jumble together as the movie goes on.

Review:

I have to say, this is one of the weirdest movies I have ever watched. It’s very meta on several different levels. Let’s start with Nic Cage though. Nic Cage does an incredible job playing two different characters. He plays both the writer of the film, and his twin brother. He is completely convincing that they are separate people, they both have very different personalities, mannerisms, and even different body language. It is never ambiguous which brother Nic Cage is at any given time. The main brother is already a successful screenplay writer, but incredibly awkward, somewhat depressed, and kind of a loser. His twin is much more charismatic and better with people, and seems like he is the one that you would expect to be the successful one. The two brothers even interact well with each other. I cannot praise Nic Cage’s acting here enough, it is some of the best I have seen, from any actor. That movie though. The movie is very strange. It follows Nic Cage as he attempts to write a movie from a book that was expanded from a New Yorker article. The article was about a man who was trying to steal orchids from a nature preserve by questionable means, and he becomes a main character, the book that the author ends up writing is mostly centered around this man. His acting is very good too, and his character is very unique. The author is sort of a boring character, but fits well into the plot. The movie is narrated by Nic Cage, and explains his thought process as his screenplay of the book turns into a screenplay about himself adapting the book. The movie really seems like it shouldn’t work, but somehow it all comes together into a really strange film that picks up as it goes on. The beginning of the movie was sort of slow, and it took some getting into, but it builds and builds and builds and comes together at the end.

Verdict: 8/10 Super weird, but also very unique

Nic Cage’s Acting: 10/10 Fantastic, the two brothers he plays are like completely different people

Should you watch it?: Definitely, it’s strange one though

Iconic Moments:

What if the writer is trying to create a script where nothing much happens?

I’m going to an orchid festival this weekend, would you like to go with me?

The Boys:

D: 👍

[nickscagepage-blog]

Con Air Review

Year: 1997

Genre: Action

Plot Summary:

Nic Cage was in the Army Rangers and finished his service in good standing. He’s generally just a nice southern guy trying to spend the rest of his life happily with his pregnant wife and their soon to be daughter. When he finally gets back and meets up with his wife (in a bar for some reason) some drunken dudes are shit talking him and he gets into a fight with them. He 1v3s easily, but accidentally kills one of them. He then gets a bunch of years in jail, and is scheduled for parole on his daughter’s eighth birthday. Things go wrong when he is put on a plane with the worst of the worst criminals to be transported back to Alabama for his release.

Review:

This was a fun movie, and I really liked it a lot. It had a cast with a lot of famous actors, I don’t watch a lot of movies but I knew a lot of the actors in this one. The problem with having an all-star cast was that a lot of the characters outshined Nic Cage. Nic Cage also plays the “normal” character, a guy whose crime wasn’t really that bad and that just wants to get home to see his wife, but he’s on a plane full of serial killers and big-time criminals. That inherently makes him one of the less interesting characters. As the movie goes on he attempts to be the hero, and alert the authorities to where the plane is and where it’s going, working with a US Marshal. This seems like pretty risky business, but it fits his character, who was a hero in the army rangers. Nic Cage does a very good job playing his character, but ultimately is just outshined by a lot of the other characters in the movie who have bigger personalities. I think the biggest flaw of this movie was that all of the criminals had cool criminal names, but none of them were really used besides the one for the main bad guy (Cyrus the Virus). There was a sequence at the end that showed them all, but I think it would have been better at the beginning. The best example of this is Swamp Thing; we just called Swamp Thing the driver when we watched it, as he is the one that gets on and flies the plane, and then drives the firetruck later. Steve Buscemi did a great job playing a Hannibal Lecter type character, that guy was super weird and creepy, and it seemed like he could have had more of a part. The movie did a good job of building up the tension, and then keeping there or building it up more, as only a movie about being trapped on an airplane could do. I’ve never seen snakes on a plane, but I imagine that is also a pretty tense movie. Nic Cage is figured out, or almost figured out, as not actually trying to escape a few times, and each time you’re like “oh shit, they’re going to kill him this time.” The ending is not what I was expecting. I won’t spoil the end, but he either lives or dies, and I was expecting the opposite.

Verdict: 7/10 A lot of fun

Nic Cage’s Acting: 7/10 Great southern accent and long hair

Should you watch it?: Definitely

Iconic Moments:

Why couldn’t you put the bunny back in the box

Getting shot in the arm without flinching and punching out the dude

The Boys:

D: 👍

S: 👍

[nickscagepage-blog]

The Wicker Man Review

Year: 2006

Genre: Horror (I guess?)

Plot Summary:

Nick Cage is a police officer who is on leave after a traumatic incident in the field. He receives a letter from his ex-fiancé from many years in the past that her daughter is missing and that she needs his help. She also lives in a commune on a remote island in the Pacific Northwest that practices some cultish shit. The commune produces honey that they sell, and Nic Cage is of course conveniently allergic to bees. Hilarity (unintentionally) ensues as he tries to figure out what’s going on.

Review:

This is a real dinger of a Nic Cage movie. It manages to be not very good (at all), while having so many iconic moments. This is a remake of a movie from the 70’s, which itself was an adaptation of a novel from the 60’s. I have never seen the original film, but I can almost guarantee that it is better than this one. This movie has a reputation of being one of Nic Cage’s worst, and honestly it probably deserves it. He is supposed to be some sort of decorated cop/detective type, but he is really a terrible cop. He is from California, so he doesn’t even have any jurisdiction on this little island in Washington, but even if he did he was a terrible cop and his detectiving was even worse. Most of his investigation involves shouting questions at people and breaking and entering/stealing. The women of the island are supposed to be the villains of the movie, but Nic Cage really just invites himself to their private island, starts messing with their stuff, and generally being a dick. There is a lot of seeming unnecessary violence as well, mostly Nic Cage punching out women that don’t seem like they really deserved it. The plot of the movie generally makes less and less sense as it goes on, while at the same time more and more holes show up in the plot. At some point in Nic Cage gets a bike. I just assumed that he stole it, as there is no reasoning to where it came from or why he has it. He rides it around the island, but you see no one else doing the same, so where did it come from? Then, later, when he finally meets the woman in charge of the island she gives it back to him so he can leave. I feel like there was a scene where someone gave it to him that was cut from the movie. There are a few parts that seem like they suffer from being cut strangely, and maybe the movie had to be cut down to make it a reasonable length at the sacrifice of making sense. That means whoever cut it was terrible at their job. Maybe someday we will see an extended cut that makes this into a good movie. Or maybe the movie just doesn’t make sense and never will. Probably the second one.

Verdict: 5/10 Entertaining, but not intentionally

Nic Cage’s Acting: 3/10 It’s pretty bad

Should you watch it?: Probably not, but yes

Iconic Moments: Honestly this one has so many

Not the Bees

The bear suit punch

How'd it get burned?

The Boys:

S: 👍

D: 👎

J: 👎