It’s hard to believe that I wrote my first review of a Nicolas Cage film about a year and 9 months ago. That’s when this whole WATC(H) thing started. It’s perhaps harder for me to believe that I persisted through roughly 109 additional films / features and have now seen virtually everything in Nicolas Cage’s long and lustrous filmography–to date. I have to end every statement like this with “to date” “up till now” or “currently” because Nicolas Cage never stops working and will continue to release film after film for likely many years to come. But I am not obligated to watch or review those because…

I have achieved my ultimate goal that are I started in early 2023. I watched EVERY SINGLE one of his films (usually twice) and I gave my OPINIONS on each of them. 

This post is not a reflection or retrospective on that journey (I’ll probably do one of those soon) but this is the FINAL REVIEW.

Wow.

And what a great film to end on. I knew starting out that this would probably be a good one to go out on, but I had no idea HOW PERFECT it would end up being. In 2023, hadn’t seen The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022) yet and promised myself I would watch it last, even though I watched most of the other films chronologically. This one seemed like the capstone, the icing on top–and it certainly was.

The word meta is defined as: (a creative work) referring to itself or to the conventions of its genre; self-referential. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (TUWoMT) is the most meta film of any I have seen AND it’s even more meta for me personally because I have been playing the part of Nic Cage superfan Javi Gutierrez for almost two years. Everything about the film seems to point to something else and to itself. To the cultural phenomenon of Nicolas Cage’s celebrity, the grand and awe-inspiring of his career and films, and to the absurdity of such meme-worthy recognition. It’s a film that makes fun of itself (and us uber-fans) while also exalting the process and the artist path to such notoriety. First, lets summarize. Spoilers ahead.

The World According to Nicolas Cage playing Nicolas Cage

This film opens with a young fan girl, Maria Delgado, is watching Con Air somewhere in Spain when a bunch of masked men break into her home, knock her out, and kidnap her. 

Then we flash to somewhere in L.A. where Nic Cage (Nicolas Cage) is pitching himself to a movie producer / director for a role he really would like to land. Nicolas seems pretty desperate and forces the poor guy to listen to him read some lines to him in his strong “Boston accent”. [The quoted lines comes up again later and seems like something from a film noir thriller from the 40s, maybe something from Herman J. Mankiewicz.] 

“It takes 13 milliseconds for the human brain to send a message to the body so by the time your bullets hit my my cerebral cortex will have transmitted a signal to the 17 healthy muscles that operate my trigger finger. And before your asshole has had a chance to pucker up, medulla oblongata will be splattered on the wall behind me. And if that’s the last thing I accomplish on this green earth, I say, hah huh, what a way to fuckin’ go.” 

The reading doesn’t seem to land. We then see Nicolas speaking with his agent Richard Fink (Neil Patrick Harris) about how much he would like to land this role, and more meaningful roles in general.

His alter ego Nicky (Nicolas Cage) a young “Wild at Heart”-era version of Nicolas Cage often gives the older Nic violent, erratic pep talks critiquing his decisions and reminding him of who he “really is”. No one else can see these “inner dialogues” (read: critiques) playing out or the younger version of Nic (which seems to be mostly in his head.) 

Nic’s career problems seem to be masking what’s going on at home–as his 16 year old daughter Addy (Lilly Mo Sheen) feels increasingly alienated from him, and his nearly-ex-wife Olivia (Sharon Horgan) is pretty fed up with his celebrity shenanigans.

The movie role that he wants falls through but Richard offer Nic another gift, to visit a rich super fan for his birthday party in Spain–Nic is reluctant to do this–but the pay out is pretty hefty $1,000,000 just to show up for the weekend in Mallorca. 

When Nicolas fails to land the role and makes a drunken fool of himself at his daughter’s birthday party, he decides to take the million dollars as a last-call appearance, before he retires from acting forever. Nic flies to Mallorca and when he lands he is spotted by two CIA agents Martin (Ike Barinholtz) and Vivian (Tiffany Hadish) who are not expecting to see the actor, Nicolas Cage, as they have been building a case against a suspected head of an international arms cartel, a Spanish man named Javier “Javi” Gutierrez (Pedro Pascal). 

Javier, is the true superfan of Nicolas Cage, who has hired him to come and visit him for his birthday. Javier has also written his own screenplay which he is hoping to convince Nicolas Cage to star in / produce. The CIA Agents, who were expecting an Italian crime boss, Sergio Baltassari, to show up at the airport, debate whether they should abort their original plan of planting a GPS on Baltassari tracker–but decide to use Nicolas Cage instead. Unbeknownst to him, Vivian slips the tracking device into his coat pocket while she talks to him about the film Croods 2 in the airport.

Nicolas, who is still talking details with his agent on his cell phone, arrives at the meeting point, at a harbor where a speed boat is awaiting him to take him to Javier’s palatial mansion. It takes a while for Nic to realize that Javier is not just the driver of the boat, but he is also the billionaire who has hired him to come and visit. He also happens to be probably Nic Cage’s biggest fan in the world. 

The rest of the film plays out like a beautiful bromance, spy thriller, crime comedy in which Nicolas Cage gets recruited by the CIA to surveil Javier and his operation in order to try and determine where he may have hidden the kidnapped girl shown at the beginning of the movie (who happens to be the daughter of a potential president in Spain that would be “tough on crime” and the Gutierrez’ family interests). While agreeing to work for the CIA, Nic realizes that Javier is actually a pretty good dude and friend with many of the same interests and hobbies in life and someone that he can actually connect with on a personal level. Nic suspects that the CIA is wrong about Javi, and Javi tries his best to get Nic to read his script and forgo his desire to retire from acting. 

As the two go on various adventures together, jumping off a cliff into the ocean, dropping acid, swapping shoes, swimming in infinity pools, and watching top films together, we discover that Javi’s BIG secret is that he practically worships at the altar of Nicolas Cage, and Nicolas Cage feels a bit guilty for secretly trying to uncover Javi’s bigger crimes. 

Both Cage and Javi are caught up in a much bigger plot as the storyline eventually reveals that it is not Javi, but his cousin Lucas Gutierrez (Paco Leon), who is really behind the kidnapping of the young woman and the running of the family’s criminal operations. Javi is actually more of a figurehead for the family’s “olive empire” and seems unaware of the depths of his cousin’s evil machinations. Nic is also RIGHT about the fact that Javi at his core, is a good man, who can be trusted, even though Javi scares Nic’s wife and daughter into traveling all the way to Mallorca to help Nic with his creative block–thus unintentionally endangering their lives.

The film is pretty “meta” in that it’s a film about a guy who loves the actor Nicolas Cage and gets to meet him as Nicolas Cage (playing himself) and Javi / Cage are plotting to make their own film about two friends in a “serious” character-driven film that must meet the demands of an audience–which is in fact what happens by the end of the film. So all the things that the two “fictional” characters are working through creatively (while evading the CIA and the criminals pursuing them) through dialogue and description is what we eventually see playing out in the scenes–even up to the big Hollywood ending where Cage / Javi turn the tables on Lucas, save their families, and kill Lucas in front of the U.S. Embassy, as Nicolas Cage’s Hollywood-interpreted wife (Demi Moore) looks on in trepidation. 

Of course there were many more wonderful moments throughout that I am not detailing here, that I may reference in part below, but from a summary perspective I’ll leave it a bit vague because YOU REALLY SHOULD SEE THIS ONE. No seriously, if you’ve even seen a couple of Nicolas Cage’s more famous films, this one will resonate and entertain you. It’s a really good flick.

Meta Me

So, I really enjoyed the fact that I was watching a film about someone very similar to me who has spent way too many hours watching a bunch of films by this polarizing, nouveau shamanic genius known as Nicolas Cage (who was playing himself, playing himself, playing himself). While I don’t have Javi’s financial resources, I do have my small Nicolas Cage shrines and memorabilia–The T-shirt, the St. Nic candle, the stickers, the books, the framed photo, the Dream Scenario sleep mask. When you spend roughly 10,000 hours (~90+min x 110 films) appreciating and studying a particular person and their craft, you tend to idolize them a bit–and you are fully invested.Otherwise you just wouldn’t stick around for it all. Only someone who is a little crazy and obsessive does things like this.

So in that sense there were parts of Javi’s obsession that felt a little meta for me. There were also parts of the film details itself that felt a little meta or self-referential into my own experiences over the past roughly two years. Here’s a few of them.

• Psychedelics. The last few years I’ve been struggling more with my chronic depression and the antidepressants just weren’t working like they once did. I read Michael’s Pollan’s book How To Change Your Mind and it kind of reframed my thinking a bit and got me curious. This time last year, I had a pretty powerful experience on a pretty strong psychedelic (not LSD). So in the midst of the WATC(H) I was “expanding my mind” or at the very least trying to approach the depression in a different way. Thought it was hilarious that this was what Javi suggested Nicolas Cage do so they could think BIGGER about their script / movie. 

• Vans. Nicolas Cage is about ten years older than me. I can relate to the state of life he is in, even if our lives and journeys have been very different. The comedic scene where Javi and Nic are changing shoes is pretty hilarious, but I really enjoyed Nic pointing out that “Your shoes don’t offer any ankle support.” I have struggled with plantar fasciitis for years now and my shoe decisions are mostly based on how well they support my feet. I miss (desperately) being able to wear Vans or other “stylish” shoes from my past, but must now wear Hokas or Brooks or whatever sports shoes offer me the most padding.
• Not like we ever left. This meta joke comes up time and again in this film and reflects real life because of all the flack that Nic Cage takes from critics (and even me at times) about his indiscriminate selection of roles he chooses to take on. We know that Cage has been in bad movies almost primarily for the financial gain and “the work” that he needs. So the conversation talks about him “being back” in the limelight or in a “good roles” again, but he is quick to add, “not like we ever left.” For me this is meta because this blog was my attempt to make a writing comeback. To get in the habit of writing again, for myself mostly, but also for the discipline of it. It gave me a project, but “it’s not like I ever really left.” LOL.   

• The Croods 2. One of the biggest challenges or missteps from The WATC(H) was forcing myself to watch all of the animated features that Nicolas Cage puts his voice to. The “completionist” in me is proud that I did that, but the grump in me sure wishes I’d been more selective. This was perfectly voiced by CIA agent Martin, when he was asked if he’d seen The Crood 2? “No, I’m 44 years old. Why the fuck would i see Croods 2?” At 49 and 50, I would often ask myself the same question.  
• Ranking the top films. Another question I get a lot is what is my favorite Nicolas Cage film. This is an impossible question. There are 110 to choose from and they are all different genres, visions, and even eras from his career. I usually go with my safe bet, Raising Arizona, because it’s just so amazing, but it’s really a “cheat answer.” Nicolas Cage and Javi navigate this by going with their top 3, but as Nic reminds us, “You can’t pick just one.” 

Meta Cage

If the film was meta for me, it was more self-referential for real life Nicolas Cage. Not just because it does honor to his movies, but it actually acknowledges some of his real life characteristics. Here’s a short list I made.

• It talks about his substantial debts (owes $600,000) and he’s been living in a hotel. I doubt he spent much time in a hotel, but we know he had bad spending habits and got into trouble with the IRS.
• His working habits. Young Nicky, Cage’s alter ego / younger self wants Cage to be a “movie star” and not a blue-collar work-every-day actor. Nicolas Cage in real life has talked many times about his NEED to be working, how it support his life and keeps him out of trouble. There’s a great scene with the therapist where he references this and his critics (in a whiney voice.) 
• Describing his favorite film, the Cabinet of Dr. Calgari Nicolas Cage talks about how Caligari’s a crazy old loon who has this sleepwalker under his spell. “Can you imagine how horrifying that would be to be completely under someone’s spell?” This is meta because of the cultural phenomenon / meme-generating power of Cage himself. It’s also a reference, I think to Javi’s character and really all of us super-fans out here that mindlessly worship at the altar of Cage. We’re bewitched.
• All the references to nouveau shamanic acting style, German expressionism, and the acting methods he employs are well-documented.
• Drinking Jack Daniels. I think it’s one he likes.
• How Nicolas Cage responds to Vivian shouting “ACTION” when he is under the influence of the incapacitating drugs. If nothing else in his life, Cage is an actor and a movie star, not even a knock-out dose can keep him from finishing a scene.

Meta Films

A lot of articles have documented all the references to Nic Cage’s movies within this film. So I won’t go to all the trouble. One thing I will point out is that this film felt a little bit like Face / Off (Javi’s top Cage film) in that these two are facing off, not as real enemies, but as friends throughout.

The wax figure, the golden guns, the “masked” identities, it’s all a meta exploration of one of Cage’s more popular films and I enjoyed it immensely. The closing credits of this film cited many more films than I noticed watching the movie. This could be because some were referencing soundtrack, scores, or bits of dialogue I somehow missed, but here are the films I’ve noticed from The WATC(H) and how they were referenced in TUWoMTd:

• Con Air (clip, bunny in musuem)
• Face / Off (clip, referenced, wax figure / golden guns in museum)
• The Rock (clip, referenced, chemical weapon prop in museum)
• Raising Arizona (Huggies & arrest ID board prop in museum)
• Mandy (referenced, chainsaw prop, battle axe in museum)
• It Could Happen to You (ticket prop in museum)
• Guarding Tess (clip, referenced, skeet shooting)
• The Croods 2 (referenced)
• Gone in Sixty Seconds (referenced)
• Wild at Heart (T-shirt and Nicky character)
• Leaving Las Vegas (re-enacted scene, bottle prop in museum)
• Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (referenced)
• Joe (the director from that film was the director in this film scene)
• National Treasure (referenced, movie poster in museum)
• Moonstruck (referenced, wooden hand in museum)
• The Wicker Man (“not the bees” referenced)

First for a Nicolas Cage as Nicolas Cage

• Playing his literal self
• Playing a younger version of his literal self
• Kissing himself passionately
• Punching himself in the face.
• Jumping off of a cliff into water (as opposed to an island, The Rock, or offshore prison rig Face / Off, or aircraft carrier, Seeking Justice)
• Getting roughly massaged, i.e. beaten, with hyssops (or some other leafy foliage)
• Trying to buy a wax figure of his own likeness
• Referencing his shamanic nouveau acting style
• Zipping his mouth
• At an artesian hot bath
• Watching Paddington 2
• Watching one of his own movies on an airplane.
• Sensei bowing to someone.
• Playing truth or dare with a bro.
• Dosing himself with an incapacitating agent
• Kills a guy with a pocket to knife to save his family and end two movies

Recurrences

• Playing two “twin” roles that talk with one another (Adaptation.)
• Dosing with a powerful psychedelic (Mandy)
• Using two golden guns from a previous film (Face / Off)
• Playing the piano (A Score to Settle)
• Dressing in an elaborate disguise to infiltrate a criminal operation (Dying of the Light)
• Jumping into a pool (and sinking) with a beer in his hand only to be saved by someone who loved him (Leaving Las Vegas)
• Watching Paddington 2 a second time
• Screaming “waaaaaahhhhhh” (Multiple)
• Annoying his children, by being a kinda bad parent (Multiple)
• Wearing a giant belt buckle (Multiple)
• Drinking Jack Daniels (Multiple)
• Serenading a loved one (The Family Man, Wild at Heart, Moonstruck)
• Skeet shooting (Guarding Tess)
• Reference to Cage’s idol Humphry Bogart (Dog Eat Dog)

Quotables (Nicky)

“Honestly man, you really need this.” 

“I’m just saying you could be a little more strategic.” (speaking for all of us)

“Make more movie star choices.” Nicky

“No! You’re a fucking MOVIE STAR and don’t you ever forget that!”

“You’re Nick FUUUUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKINNNNNN WOW CAGE!”

“Yeah Nick Cage smooches good.” 

 “You’re just a guy who’s about to get us killed, you FUCKING idiot.”

“We haven’t worked since you were fifteen. Forty one years to be number seven on the call sheet of a student film.” 

Quotables Nicolas Cage

“Miles Davis was a heroin addict!” 

“I don’t need this, Nicky. Get out of my car.” 

“You’re making too many movies, Nic. You’re working too hard, Nic. Have the audience miss you more.” 

“I really want this. It’s a role of lifetime. It’s a great part.” 

“You never shit on yourself!” 

“Gather around the piano, HOO-HAW!”

“When it’s over I’m done. Like hot dogs on a grill.” 

“I said I’m quitting ACT—” 

“I’m not feeling tip-top right now.” 

“Paddington 2 is incredible.” 

“You know, spycraft. Subterfuge. What have you.” 

“Fuck it!” 

“I can’t stand talkie comedies.” 

“I can’t drive on acid! I can’t drive on acid!” 

“It’s just grotesque.” 

“I’m working two jobs here.” 

“They’re kind of like dueling Christ figures which is a revolutionary idea in itself.” 

“This is an intelligent film for grown ups.” 

“They’re MY golden guns!” 

“I’m not in the CIA. I’m a god-damned actor. You know that!” 

“Which is why I should always trust my shamanic instincts as a thespian.”

dven think about it.” 

Conclusion

Todd: Wow, this is it huh, Todd? The end of the road. The last one. What did we accomplish here? What was it all for? 

Toddy: I wish I knew.

Todd: If nothing else, it was a pretty fun ride. We know a lot more now about Nicolas Cage–both the old and the young version than we ever thought we would. Not many people in the world can say they watched EVERY SINGLE Nic Cage movie and then wrote a review of it. Even the animated ones?

Toddy: Yeah, but so what?!? No one reads this stuff. You drone on and on and on. Too much detail, not enough editing. And some of these films were really, really bad. Not worth watching. 

Todd: You TAKE THAT BACK! Right this minute, mister! 

Toddy: Can we just get on with it? We’ve got other things to do. Don’t we. You’re Todd FUCKIN Johnson!

Todd: Well, I guess in summary of this last OFFICIAL one. We came, we saw, we kicked some ever-lovin’ ass and we saw and lived and appreciate the entire work (up till now) of a pretty genius actor and entertainment savant. We did it for all the random reasons that and for the pretty important one that Nic mentioned in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.

“Because it’s just a matter of time before the great power plant upstairs turns off the juice and we retreat into the black pit of nothingness from whence we came.”

We did just because it was possible and we are still breathin’ air. One last time for…

NICK FUUUUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKINNNNNN–

WHOAH HIYAAAH (round house leg kick)

CAGE!”