Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent review: Nic Cage’s meta-movie is a thrill

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Nicolas Kim Coppola is better known by his moniker Nicolas Cage. It would be difficult to describe him to someone not familiar with his work. He’s a troubling and highly scrutinized public personality, an actor who’s both received great acclaim in serious dramas and made a name for himself in cheap DTV films of dubious quality. He’s prime meme material. He’s probably inspired more “Is he a great performer or an awful one?” debates than any actor in his generation. He’s a prolific actor who continues to both entertain the masses and elevate even the weirdest little indie he’s in by sheer energy and force of charisma.

The thing about Nicolas Cage is that he also completely understands what the public wants — he’s a reflexive, audience-aware performer who plays into and against expectations with every line, every expression. The idea behindMassive Talent’s Unbearable Mass is such a slippery slope: It’s In a movie about Nic Cage’s legend, Nicolas Cage is portrayed as a fictional version (named Nick Cage, and the K). After Cage himself has spent the last decade, at least, playing right into the public’s idea of Nic Cage’s identity, is a meta-comedy about the man himself just redundant? It’s complicated, as is everything about Nicolas Cage. The film works like gangbusters, and it’s a terrific vehicle for Cage, but not for the reasons people might expect.

Director Tom Gormican, and Kevin Etten (his co-writer), are to be commended. The Inexplicable Weight of Large Talent’s script is as audience-aware as Cage’s acting. The moment we first see Cage’s face, he’s in his car, hyping himself up for a meeting with Halloween kills director David Gordon Green. Cage believes a role in Green’s latest movie will turn his career around and bring him back to the top — not that he ever left, as he likes to point out. This is a Cage who’s hungry for work, hungry for opportunities to exploit his love of acting and movies, but whose public persona follows him around like a specter, costing him the kind of role he’d rather be doing.

While Cage still plays into the whisper-then-scream range that’s built so many memes, his manic persona is portrayed as a beast wanting to be let out, rather than the whole of Nick Cage. That persona causes problems for Cage’s family, who are sick and tired of him prioritizing his job over them, and imposing his love of movies like Fritz Lang’s classic 1920 German expressionist film Cabinet of Dr. Caligari These are the best. This is the biggest surprise Massive Talent’s Unbearable Mass is that it’s so melancholic about the career Nic Cage possibly set out to get, vs. the one he got. This is Nic Cage’s struggle to recover the movie star image that he used to have in his youth. Wild at Heart years, as he’s instead working on an endless parade of small indies, makes for a central part of the story.

It is in some ways reminiscent of Val Kilmer’s documentary Val, which similarly looked at a once-acclaimed blockbuster star and revealed his deep sadness over being typecast as an action hero, when all he wanted was more serious and challenging roles, like in 1996’s The Island of Dr. Moreau This is the great tragedy Massive Talent’s Unbearable MassNic Cage’s confrontation with the greater-than life persona is what the movie is all about. He laughs at his movies and glorifies them. But, what he truly wants is to have fun. Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

Photo by Katalin vermes/Lionsgate

Of course, things aren’t that simple. And as if Cage’s public image didn’t leave him with enough pressure, there’s also the personification of his public image himself: Nicky Cage, a young, Wild At Heart-era Cage played by Cage himself, though he’s humorously credited as Nicolas Kim Coppola. Nicky’s life is restored by some horrendous de-aging. He’s the real star of the film, the ghost of fame past that serves as Nick’s devil on his shoulder. He’s the inner voice that constantly questions their decisions, heckling current, more mature Cage to stop looking for respectable gigs and just return to being a movie star. But he never went.

So it’s unfortunate that Nicky is barely in the film, though his memorable scenes are sure to be GIF’d and shared for years to come. During a Q&A following the film’s premiere, the real Cage confessed that the Nicky role was what convinced him to join the film, but he said that many of Nicky’s scenes got cut, alongside more homages to Cage’s earlier work.

The film’s appeal is not just Nicolas Cage acting as himself. Massive Talent’s Unbearable Mass still has a plot — though it doesn’t do the experience any favors. Cage is asked to attend a party hosted by Javi Gutierrez, a Spanish billionaire (Pedra Pascal), possibly a weapon dealer. Despite being asked by the CIA to spy for them, Cage falls head over heels for Javi and becomes their best friend.

Although it might have been simple for Massive Talent’s Unbearable Mass Go full MiseryJavi is a dangerous, obsessive fan. Cage, Pascal and their conversation about life are the best parts of this film. They form an authentic connection through movies. Dr. Caligari To the beauty of Paddington 2.

It’s strangeYou can find more information here think of anyone besides Nicolas Cage logging the best performance in a movie all about Nicolas Cage, but Pascal absolutely steals the show as Javi. He shows up with all the charisma and charm that’s led him to be everything from Game of Thrones to MandalorianIt turns up to 11. Even when exhibiting some odd fan behavior, like having a shrine to Nick Cage that includes a life-size wax statue, he’s so honest in his admiration that it’s impossible not to root for him.

Problem with Massive Talent’s Unbearable Mass The truth is, Etten and Gormican want their cake and eat it as well. After the first two acts focus on Nick Cage’s public persona and how that affects his life and career, and how he only does movies with big, bombastic action to sell the more serious stuff to casual moviegoers, the film becomes the same type of DTV action film it criticizes. The film tries to appeal to every single member of the church of Cage, especially fans of what Gormican called “deranged Cage” during the Q&A. This makes sense from a marketing perspective, since when Cage leans into that identity, he’s playing his more grandiose, better-known persona. And yet it’s a pity, because the quieter, dedicated, movie-loving Cage stands out the most, and he’s what makes the film a worthy addition to the Nic Cage mythos.

The Inexplicable Weight of Large TalentTheaters will open on April 22.