"The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent:" Nic Rattles, But Never Escapes, His Cage

What went wrong in one of the century's most promising comedies?

June 6, 2022

On March 25, 1996, Nicolas Cage won Best Actor for his performance in Leaving Las Vegas at the height of the Academy’s awarding portrayals of struggles they did not understand. Cage has admitted to borrowing from iconic alcoholic characters to inform his performance: Kris Kristofferson in A Star is Born, Jack Lemmon in Days of Wine and Roses, Ray Milland in The Lost Weekend, and Dudley Moore in Arthur. It shows. Ben Sanderson, the afflicted screenwriter drinking himself to death in Sin City does not feel like his own person, only an amalgamation of other characters.

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Regardless, it was a watershed moment in Cage’s career. He thrived in the late 80s with Raising Arizona and Moonstruck, crossing the border between indie quirk and mainstream blockbuster well enough to become one of Hollywood’s rising stars. Unfortunately, he did not maintain the momentum; a string of critical flops and commercial disasters (Vampire’s Kiss, Wild At Heart, Guarding Tess) stalled his journey to true stardom. It was Leaving Las Vegas that proved the toil worth his while. Ascending the mountain was a rollercoaster ride, but at long last, he was there, having bested two Oscar-winners (Richard Dreyfuss for Mr. Holland’s Opus and Anthony Hopkins for Nixon) to arrive.

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Against convention, Cage followed his critical peak with what many felt an inexplicable commercial cop-out. He starred in The Rock, Con Air, and Face/Off back-to-back-to-back, all action blockbusters that faced differing critical appraisals but immense box office success. He ventured into romantic fantasy with the similarly received City of Angels, hit a critical low with the Disney disaster Gone in 60 Seconds (which cost the studio $90 million), and then returned to the indie scene with Adaptation and Matchstick Men, the former garnering him an Oscar nomination. In 2004 he starred in National Treasure, a Disney imagining of American history that grossed $347 million globally. He followed with the 9/11 remembrance movie World Trade Center and a bizarre remake of The Wicker Man two years later, then capped the decade with sci-fi action movies Next and Knowing, comic book adaptation Ghost Rider, and National Treasure: Book of Secrets. Of the four, only Book of Secrets was successful with either critics or the public, pulling in $459 million worldwide.

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The 2010s followed with more "questionable" choices but failed to uphold the 2000s standard of the occasional critical or commercial success. Only The Croods, an animated film, starred Cage and became a success at the box office, with a $587 million global gross.

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It is easy to look at Cage’s filmography with raised eyebrows and suppressed laughter because we have taken it upon ourselves to decide what a career should and should not be. We scoff at people who abandon six-figure salaries to pursue their dreams, look quizzically at those who live off the grid, and judge success by chart-toppers and radio hits. Cage did what many of us want to do but fail at ever doing: living life on our own terms. A movie where he plays himself, parodying the public perception of him, thus walks a tricky tightrope and will fall into the water based on whether it sees Cage as someone worthy of our ridicule or us as people deserving of repudiation.

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The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent begins with a look back to Cage's worst moment: the end of Con Air, when his Alabama-bred Cameron Poe (equipped with one of film's worst-ever accents) hands a stuffed bunny to the daughter he’s never met. It leaves little question as to the extent Cage is aware of our collective confusion at his career course or the extent to which we snicker at some of his, shall we say, less affecting screen moments. It is refreshing to see an actor willing to parody himself with such self-awareness, and thus Massive Talent begins on a note that hints at an auspicious lack of vanity.

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It makes Cage a curious choice. Few actors have experienced such a bumpy ride on the road to Oscar gold and then actively chosen to star in family adventure flicks or sci-fi disaster movies. He did the exact opposite of everything an actor is supposed to do, which renders the parody less effective; if the man has spent his career knowingly bucking convention, the joke can only be on those who chastise him for his choices.

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The only option for success becomes making fun of our judgment enough to make us see the three fingers pointing back at us or force Cage to embrace everything we perceive him to be; the film does neither. Cage feels too self-conscious to refuse a heroic portrayal, and the film caters to that perspective. The result is the worst thing any movie can do: not live up to its title.

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We never experience the weight of massive talent or understand why it is so unbearable. If the film had sharpened its focus to zero in on crafting a title-fulfilling story, it could have found the balance it spends 107 minutes trying to find. It would have treated itself like a road trip. It would have known exactly what path to take, what routes to avoid, and realized that the best part of a road trip is everything happening in the car. It’s belting out 80s songs while feasting on rest-stop snacks, allowing the suffocating atmosphere to squeeze out years-old disputes, and laughing so hard the driver nearly swerves into an oncoming semi-truck.

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It’s also the things we don’t want to admit, like peeing in bottles when we’re miles away from a pitstop, pretending we know how to read a map until we’re stuck in the middle of the desert, and pretending to ignore someone with whom we share palpable sexual tension. Massive Talent thinks simply taking the road trip makes it a worthwhile movie, but you have to choose the proper companions and render everything else supplementary. A trip with Nicolas Cage playing himself alongside a scene-stealing Pedro Pascal is a recipe for success. The chemistry allows for a straight-shot drive that you can pack full of all the lunacy or in-jokes you desire. We get hints of it, whether it's a cheeky reference to the back half of a famous film organization or numerous mentionings of Javi's in-depth admiration of Cage.

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But the lack of awareness makes the movie pull its punches more often than not. An acid trip feels like two kids pretending to try drugs to impress the older kids in the neighborhood. An inspirational cliff jump feels like something from a high school creative writing assignment instead of a scene committed to either character-building drama or off-the-wall comedy.

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In the few moments it recognizes that its foundation allows for ludicrousness, it engages with a bonkers comedy that feels like a promise of better things that never materialize. We see Cage kiss a vision of his younger self just seconds after that younger self punches him in the face. The blend of self-awareness, that knowledge of any actor’s self-conscious vanity, pours itself into what is essentially a labor of both self-aggrandizing and self-effacing love. The film succeeds in the few moments it embraces this and fails when it tries to be something else entirely.

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In a conversation between Cage and Pascal's Javi, they discuss the film they are developing. Cage is forcing the issue of a hook on behalf of a CIA agent trying to extract intel from the supposed criminal Javi; Javi is taking the task seriously, genuinely believing Cage is a friend there to help him create a masterpiece. A debate ensues regarding the merit of artistic integrity against the necessity for audience engagement; every film needs a “hook,” the trailer moments that draw a crowd to the theater. The film forces an in-film kidnapping plot to resolve its narrative and decisions about Cage, and by doing so, somewhat ironically becomes a trailer film itself. It settles for the cheapest, most obvious joke, relies on strokes of heroism and sacrifice omnipresent in its genre, and ultimately feels more like an overextended trailer than an actual film.

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While amusing, even the in-jokes about the nature of actors and film organizations or the pointed knowledge Javi possesses regarding Cage’s filmography speak more to what the film aspired to be instead of what it actually became. It is isolated moments of promise amidst a movie that does not understand how to achieve what it seeks to accomplish. It has an intriguing spy angle that allows endless comedy but opts for a transition that leaves a set-up rife with possibility on the table.

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After all, he’s “Nick fuuuuuuuuuuckiiiiiiiin’-OW-WOO Cage!” Every role feels like you’re watching that man, especially as the cultural conversation surrounding him becomes consumed by infamy. Cage cannot be unaware of how he is perceived; the film is simply evidence of his attitudes towards it. The movie should feel like a shameless exploration of that caricature and a willingness to speak on it one way or the other. Everything Cage touches should turn to asinine comedy gold with a sprinkling of insight into the nature of massive talent and the weight with which it burdens a star. Instead, it thinks a flashy car and a touristy destination make a good road trip. It overlooks what’s in the car and thus cannot impart anything; not consistent laughs, character-driven drama, or the unbearable weight of massive talent.