World Trade Center (2006)
Directed: Oliver Stone
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Michael Peña, Maria Bello, Maggie Gyllenhaal
Based on a true 9/11 story. A fair initial expectation of this movie would be that it's going to be bad. You probably expect a lot of Patriotism, a lot of fluffing up New York Cops. It is, instead, shockingly restrained. A handful of Port Authority cops respond to the initial hit and set out for rescue operations. This is over minutes later when the tower collapses in on them, kills 2 or 3 of them, and leaves the remaining (Cage, Peña) in the rubble. This situation is not resolved until near the very end of the movie, so two of our primary characters are trapped under rocks in darkness and dust for 90% of the feature. The majority of the movie, then, follows their wives (Bello, Gyllenhaal) as they panic over not knowing the status of their respective husbands. These aspects of the movie aren't *bad*, exactly - they're predictable. What really pulls this whole thing together is the C-plot. A retired marine (Michael Shannon) decides he has a god-given duty to help with the rescue mission. He leaves work, travels multiple states, puts on his old fatigues, and walks into the Ground Zero rescue operations under false pretenses. He continues at night, after the official operations have been suspended for safety concerns. There are no negative consequences to this, of course, everything works out fine, and our protagonists are rescued. I said at the top that this movie was shockingly restrained - there are a few exceptions to this. This character is most of them. One of his initial lines, "It's like God made a curtain with the smoke, shielding us from what we're not yet ready to see", is a groaner, but it has nothing on his last line. Nearly two hours into this movie, after the rescue is done, when the movie is in the full swell of catharsis, we are treated to, as he walks through rubble: "They're going to need some good men out there to avenge this". Atrocious. Cage's performance here is workmanlike - the first few minutes show a terse, unpersonable sergeant, and then he's under a rock and off screen for all but a few minutes. Skip this one.
Gone in 60 Seconds (2000)
Directed: Dominic Sena
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Angelina Jolie, Giovanni Ribisi
I'm something of an expert on movies about cars that move quickly and angrily, so this was an exciting pull. Legendary former car thief Memphis Raines (Cage) is forced back into the criminal life to save his kid brother Kip (Ribisi) after a job goes bad. They have to steal a list of 50 specific cars and deliver them within 4 days. We assemble a crew, a mix of old blood from Memphis' former crew and new from Kip's. Hounding him all the while is Detective Castlebeck (Delroy Lindo), unconvinced that Raines has turned over the new leaf he claims to have. When it comes to the action, its pretty good. But when this movie wants to be funny, it is *awful*, ranging from juvenile poop jokes (brief appearance here of last week's star Michael Peña) to wild racism. These scenes feel so out of place and break the pace of the movie. At 2 hours, it doesn't need the filler. It would be much stronger without them. The core flaw though is in the characters. This is a strong stance but I think if you're going to have a crew-based movie, its pretty important that the crew be likeable. They're nearly all just awful, the two exceptions being Otto (Robert Duvall), who is a pretty rote Old Man Mechanic, and Sphinx (Vinnie Jones), the silent muscle. The former is a free space and the latter is, well its Vinnie Jones, that's also a free space. The romance subplot with Sway (Jolie) is superfluous but inoffensive. What *is* offensive are her blonde white girl dreads. It's a terrible look. To the extent that this is a good movie, it's on the backs of Cage and Lindo who both give great performances. Oh and Christopher Eccleston is here. Give this one a watch, just maybe think about something else when Mirror Man is on screen.
Ghost Rider (2007)
Directed: Mark Steven Johnson
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Sam Elliott
When I started writing these down I hadn't fully processed that I would need to find words to say about Ghost Rider. It's, fucking, it's Ghost Rider. Ok, shit. The music choices in this movie are funny every single time. There are two halves to this movie, the half with Nicolas Cage and the half with CGI Flaming Skeleton, and luckily it costs money to put the skull man on screen so we get to spend a lot time with Cage wearing fun Evel Knievel outfits and sunglasses and enjoying monkey movies, its a good time. Skullman time can be goofy fun but there's also a lot that feels like worse Blade. It even has Donal Logue! The villain especially would love to be Deacon Frost. They're at least right to do it, Blade kicks ass. Oh David S. Goyer was executive producer. Yup that checks out. Sam Elliott's here, he delivers exactly what you're looking for from him. Oh right, the first like 20 minutes is backstory. Mostly skippable, 2007 comic book movie that thinks it needs to tell you why there's a flaming skeleton biker. We don't need to know why there's a flaming skeleton biker, just show us the skullman.
Left Behind (2014)
Directed: Vic Armstrong
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Cassi Thomson, Chad Michael Murray
The wheel has decided that I watch this movie and I am *struggling* to speak about it. Fuuuuck this movie sucks. Let's try: Kid Dorkus gets raptured and you're glad to see him go, what a dweeb. The beginning of the movie when its showing all kinds of vehicles going unpiloted is the funniest shit in the world. A Cessna falls into onto main character, just diving into a parking lot as if its targetting her. A bus somehow drives off a bridge. Just cars going everywhere. It's so good, these brief moments. There's a bit with an elderly couple that could have been in Airplane, it's actually just good vaudeville. I think that's it, I think I've exhausted the good parts. Oh right, uh Melvin Weir is here and he's just kind of fun in every scene, just really kills his part. The bad parts have such a range. There are the small things, the implications of the world view with slut shaming, anti-atheism, expected what have you, but then it'll just throw a heavy ass punch on muslim terrorism implications, a fucking *wild* moment at the end of the movie where a little person supporting character (Melvin Weir) is kicked over in a way that might be the most hateful thing in the entire movie? It's like 2 seconds and it's fucked that it exists. I guess something notable about this movie is how poorly it portrays true believers. They all get raptured, for sure, but before that moment every single one of them is portrayed as absolutely insufferable. And that's not just me bringing the opinion in, the movie thinks these opinions are abrasive, it just then later gets to decide that they were right. It does have the classic religious film thing of the atheist who has to confront a newfound faith but it's remarkably bad at even that. Hot take I think this movie might have been written poorly.
