Film Review: "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent" (2022).

"Nicolas Cage is Nick Cage" in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. This action comedy film directed by Tom Gormican, and written by Gormican and Kevin Etten. Creatively unfulfilled and facing financial ruin, the fictionalized version of Cage must accept a $1 million offer to attend the birthday of a dangerous superfan. Things take a wildly unexpected turn when Cage is recruited by a CIA operative and forced to live up to his own legend, channeling his most iconic and beloved on-screen characters in order to save himself and his loved ones.

By early October 2020, Cage, Pedro Pascal, Sharon Horgan, Tiffany Haddish, Ike Barinholtz, and Neil Patrick Harris were cast in an action comedy film to be directed by Gormican and written by Gormican and Etten. The screenplay was featured in the 2019 Blacklist and considered to be one of the best unproduced screenplays. Cage plays a fictionalised version of himself who he said bore little resemblance to his real offscreen personality. He originally turned down the role "three or four times" but changed his mind after Gormican wrote him a personal letter. At the same time, principal photography commenced and took place in Dubrovnik, Croatia; Budapest, Hungary; and Los Angeles, California.

The film stars Cage, Pascal, Horgan, Haddish, Barinholtz, and Harris. We get self-absorbed characters seeking personal happiness, no matter how it may affect others, especially Cage.

Though the film was deliciously original and delivers an underrated performance by Cage, the ending was a bit disappointing. Playing by its own rules every step of the way, the film is clearly the sort of movie that needs to be made more often. This outrageous comic action adventure may not sustain its brilliance throughout its one hundred and five minutes, but it keeps cooking for so much of that time that I don't have many complaints. A triumph. Featuring a bizarrely original storyline, the screenplay by Gormican and Etten is brought to the screen by Gormican in what may turn out to be one of the funniest films of the year. The film is somewhat dense with ideas and non sequitur surprises, a viewer-friendly fun house of a film that asks only that we enjoy the ride. It is smart without seeming challenging. Wonderfully inventive, wickedly funny, and thoughtful enough to keep your mind on full alert, it's a square peg in the round world of genre films. A hilarious and beguiling comedy-adventure-action hybrid. And it's not just the jaw-dropping oddity of the thing that makes it work; the film has a wonderfully involving -- and even moving -- storyline. You just have to marvel at how well Gormican and Etten keep the whole thing from strangling on its own eccentricity. Simply the most original, brilliant film of the year! Marvellously entertaining and overflowing with surprises, the inventive, intelligent script never falters; there are new ideas and twists when you least expect them. An audacious comedy that starts strange, keeps getting stranger, then hits an idea so weird that it takes the rest of the film to explore only some of the many ramifications.

Simon says The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent receives:

Also, see my review for That Awkward Moment.