SYNOPSIS: In “Longlegs,” a new psychological horror film starring Maika Munroe and Nicolas Cage, and now playing in theatres, FBI Agent Lee Harker is assigned to a decades-old case of a serial killer who targets entire families. The case turns personal as she uncovers evidence of the occult.
CAST: Maika Monroe, Nicolas Cage, Alicia Witt, Blair Underwood, Kiernan Shipka. Directed by Osgood Perkins (son of “Psycho” star Anthony Perkins and photographer and actress Berry Berenson).
REVIEW More unsettling than scary, “Longlegs” is both thematically and visually dark. There’s not a lot of cracks to let the light in. As the mystery at the heart of this occult thriller unfolds, the action happens mostly at night or in darkened rooms, lending a heavy air of foreboding to every frame of this strange film.
Adding to the film’s otherworldly vibe is Maika Monroe as Lee Harker, the FBI agent assigned to Longlegs’ case. She is Clarice Starling with a carefully defined introspective side; a sixth sense that helps to unravel her cases. “It’s like something tapping me on the shoulder,” he says, “telling me where to look.” Analytical in the extreme, Munroe, in a quiet performance, allows us to see the gears turning in her head as the clues begin to add up. Her process gives Harker a brooding demeanor that perfectly matches the film’s tense, subdued tone.
On the other end of the scale is Cage as the titular serial killer. His unhinged, chaotic work makes his other gonzo performances in movies like “The Wicker Man,” “Face/Off” and “Vampire Kiss” seem positively understated by comparison. Jame Gumb has nothing on this guy. It’s an over-the-top display and individual mileage may vary, but his Tiny Tim inflection, creepy rendition of “Happy Birthday” and repulsive leer will not soon be forgotten.
Despite Cage’s larger-than-life-and-death performance, “Longlegs” values restraint. Other than a quick flash of decomposing bodies, a gallon or two of blood and a handful of jump scares, Perkins is more interested in burrowing into your subconscious with a nightmarish story that unfolds in the dark corners of Harker’s mind. The story’s psychological underpinnings are where the true horror lies. where the discomfort comes from.
By the time the end credits roll, you’ll leave the theatre unnerved, even after they turn on the lights.
The only thing worse than someone who says, “I had the craziest dream last night,” and then tells you all about it is… well, hardly anything. There are few things worse than suffering through a disjointed story that barely makes sense to the teller and absolutely no sense to you.
But, just imagine if everyone, family, friends, strangers, told you about their dreams, because you were in them. Every single one of them. That’s the nightmarish idea behind “Dream Scenario,” a new “Twilight Zonesque” Nicolas Cage social satire, now playing in theatres.
Cage plays humdrum evolutionary biology professor Paul Matthews. He’s an unexceptional, almost invisible man, mocked by his students and colleagues at work and a sad sack at home with possessive wife Janet (Julianne Nicholson) and two teen daughters.
His unremarkable life is made noteworthy when inexplicably, he begins to appear in the dreams of millions of people.
He’s viral all over the world, except, tellingly, in the nighttime visions of his wife. Why not? “Because you get the real deal,” he says to her. “It wouldn’t be fair to get both.”
“Why me?” he asks. “I don’t know. I’m special I guess.”
Trouble is, he doesn’t do anything special in the dreams. He mostly just appears in the background, watching unresponsively as strange things happen to the dreamer. “He occupies the space like an awkward guest at a party,” says one dreamer.
As his fame grows, it brings with it some unexpected repercussions for the unassuming Paul. “You know,” says Sidney (Marc Coppola), “fame can come with some less desirable side effects. You should be prepared for that.” At first, he almost enjoys the intense glare of the spotlight, but when his presence in the dreams goes from passive to active, and he becomes as repugnant to the public as he was once popular.
“Dream Scenario” does feature some surreal dream sequences, but it’s not really about dreams. It’s about life as a modern, viral celebrity, on display in the unblinking eye of the public, social media and cancel culture.
Cage plays Paul as a man who claims to love his anonymity, but fights a former colleague for credit when she alludes to one of his thirty-year-old theories in an academic paper, and, when fame comes, he’ll pose with anyone who wants a selfie. He’s tired of being invisible, but wants fame on his own terms. But, as the movie ably points out, fame is a three-headed hydra, untamable and uncontrollable.
It’s a perfect role for Cage’s sensibility. As Paul’s life switches from dreamlike to nightmarish, Cage embraces the tragicomic elements of the role—a man who can’t live up to expectations in real life or dream life—and pulls off a great trick by making a forgettable man memorable.
“Dream Scenario” is a clever, timely film that details everything from mid-life crisis and cancel culture to viral fame and social media marketing in a bizarre, funny and thought-provoking way.
There is perfect casting and then there is Nicolas Cage, playing a heightened version of himself in “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” a meta new action comedy now playing in theatres.
Off screen Cage is a larger-than-life character, an Oscar winner known for his penchant for purchasing dinosaur skulls, tax troubles and wildly uneven cinematic output. He brings the weight of that public persona to this movie, making myth out of his own legend of self-indulgence.
Cage plays Cage as a faded Hollywood prince. Once a box office draw, he’s down on his luck, going broke and in need of a big money gig. He has become the White Claw of serious actors. He’s good, but no one with taste is taking him seriously.
Producers, scared off by his wild-at-heart reputation, give him the Hollywood kiss off. We love you, but are going in a different direction.
Depressed, he decides to leave Hollywood. “I’m done,” he says. “I’m quitting acting. Tell the trades it was a tremendous honour to be part of storytelling and myth-making.”
Before he leaves the life, he gets an offer he can’t refuse. Olive magnate Javi Gutierrez (Pedro Pascal) will pay Cage a million dollars to attend his birthday bash in Mallorca. The actor reluctantly agrees, and soon finds himself drinking and cliff-diving at Javi’s beautiful estate.
Javi is a huge fan, with a collection of cage collectibles. “Is this supposed to be me?” cage asks, gesturing at a statue of himself. “It’s grotesque. I’ll give you twenty thousand for it.”
Turns out the starstruck Javi isn’t what he appears. “Do you know who you’re spending time with?” CIA agent Vivian (Tiffany Haddish) asks Cage. “He’s one of the most ruthless men on the face of the earth.” They think Javi kidnapped the daughter of the president of Catalonia to influence an upcoming election.
Vivian and Agent Martin (Ike Barinholtz) recruit Cage to work undercover on Javi’s estate to get to the bottom of the case. “That little girl doesn’t have anyone,” says Vivian, “and if you leave, I don’t know what will happen to her.”
It’s a chance to do some good, but for Cage, it is also the role of a lifetime.
“The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” is an entertaining, oddball movie. Essentially a one joke premise—i.e.: Cage as Cage—it plays with the tropes of many of Cage’s films, but doesn’t play as strictly homage or satire. It’s something else. What, exactly, I’m not quite sure.
It’s almost as if this is Nic Cage’s screw you to the folks who deride him for being a working actor who pumps out two or three movies a year. “I’ve always seen this as a job, as work,” he says, as though he feels bogged down by the weight of the critical appraisal of his artistic choices.
But this isn’t a movie about score settling. It’s a silly action comedy, unabashedly interested in entertaining the audience. It occasionally errs, mistaking familiar references from Cage’s filmography for jokes. It’s that “meme-ification”—the pinpointing of Cage call-backs—of the film’s humour that prevents it from becoming a knee slapper all the way through. There are laugh out loud moments, but there are more moments that feel more Instagram ready than cinematic.
Still, “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” is a good time, worth the price of admission to see young Cage advising older Cage and commit the most surreal example of actorly self-love ever seen on film.
Trailers for “Pig,” the new Nicolas Cage movie now playing in theatres, suggests a bacon flavored version of “Taken,” but that’s not what the movie is about. There is a kidnapping, a chase and even a catchphrase—“I need my pig.”—but this is an dissertation on bereavement, so don’t expect a hog-wild action movie.
Cage plays Robin Feld, a once revered chef in the Portland, Oregon area, who gave it all up to live in the middle of nowhere with his truffle hunting pig. His only contact with the outside world is Amir (Alex Wolff), the young man who supplies restaurants with the truffles Robin and his beloved pig find in the woods.
After a day of foraging, Robin and the pig settle in for the night, when suddenly the door is kicked in. Robin is knocked unconscious and the pig is abducted. The next day, with dried blood still caked on his face, Robin recruits Amir to chauffeur him around Portland in search of the people responsible for the pignapping.
“Pig” is advertised as a thriller, but it’s not. It’s more a story loss and what happens to people when the thing they care about is taken away. A key phrase comes in a long scene between Feld and a local chef as they discuss passion as it relates to food, life and relationships.
“We don’t get a lot of things to really care about,” Feld says. It’s a speech about the deep connection we make to the people and things we feel passionate about, and how important it is to heed those passions.
It’s also a testament to the void those passions leave when bad things happen. No spoilers here, but “Pig” isn’t about the kidnapping or the chase, it’s about passion, and the deep well of emotion that accompanies it.
Once again Cage takes on a taciturn character with a past. For the first half of the movie the pig has more lines than Cage. As such, the gonzo actor keeps the yelling and the histrionics to a minimum. For much of the movie, despite his ragged appearance, he is restrained almost to the point of sleepwalking. It doesn’t make for compelling viewing, but as the character opens up verbally, we begin to understand his motives for past and present behavior and the character comes into focus.
“Pig” is a nicely performed movie that delivers beyond its absurd sounding premise—man searches for his kidnapped pig—but may play too minor a chord to really strike home emotionally.
Richard joins Ryan Doyle and Jay Michaels of the NewsTalk 1010 afternoon show to talk the origins of the Dark ‘n Stormy cocktail and what movies to enjoy while sipping one on the weekend!
Nicolas Cage returns to V.O.D. with “Willy’s Wonderland,” a unique blend of satanic possession and Chucky Cheese.
Cage plays a mysterious drifter who finds himself stranded in a small town with a dark history. Picked up by a tow truck driver after running over a spike strip on a stretch of lonesome highway, he’s told it’ll cost $1000 to repair his car. Trouble is, the mechanic doesn’t take credit cards and there isn’t an ATM in sight. With no way of paying, a local businessman makes him an offer. Spend the night cleaning Willy’s Wonderland, a kid’s restaurant that’s been closed for years, and the next morning the car will be fixed and returned, no questions asked.
Easy gig. Or is it?
Turns out the drifter is the latest in a series of sent folks sent to the abandoned building as human sacrifices to mollify the evil, restless spirits that live within. You know those paintings with the eyes that follow you as you walk by? Imagine those, except they’re not paintings, but creepy kid’s mascots with cute names like Ozzie Ostrich and Tito Turtle. At first, he notices their eyes following him as he wipes down the banquets. Soon though, it becomes clear Ozzie and the others have murder on their minds.
Add a group of dispensable teenagers to the cauldron and you have a strange mix-and-match of an 80s slasher flick and a kid’s birthday party gone terribly wrong.
“Willy’s Wonderland” continues the saga of Cage’s baffling career choices but is a bit of fun.
The idea of children’s mascots possessed by the spirits of serial killers is pure Midnight Madness and Cage adds to the movie’s unhinged playfulness with a wordless, singular performance that could only have emerged from an Oscar winner intent on letting his freak flag fly. He plays pinball, glowers, does an orgasmic dance, chugs innumerable cans of soda and dispatches mascots with ruthless efficiency. It is the kind of work we’ve come to expect from Cage and the kind of performance that only he can deliver.
It won’t be for everyone, but it fits in perfectly in a movie featuring a cuddly mascot growling, “I’m gonna feast on your face!”
That Donald J. Trump handed out pardons like candy at Halloween on his last days in office but neglected to pardon “Jiu Jitsu,” the new Nicolas Cage sci fi fantasy film, now on VOD, for its crimes against cinema is astounding. This movie is equally as bad as anything Roger Stone could have done and yet Stone gets a pass and “Jiu Jitsu” doesn’t. Incredible.
The bland yet still confounding plot sees an ancient band of jiu-jitsu warriors come together every six years to save the planet from a vicious alien with world domination on their mind. When their leader, the muscle-bound uber-soldier Jake (Alain Moussi) loses his memory and is captured by army intelligence, the mysterious Kueng (Tony Jaa) comes to the rescue and begins the process of helping him rediscover who he was before the amnesia.
Jake’s old team, ace fighters Harrigan (Frank Grillo), Carmen (JuJu Chan) Forbes (Marrese Crump) among them, and mentor (and paper hat maker) Wylie (Cage), must get Jake back to form to fight off the extraterrestrial and existential threat.
Nicolas Cage can usually be counted on to spice up even the dowdiest of b-movies but here, even his gonzo stylings add little to this leaden and dreary undertaking. You don’t expect much from a movie like “Jiu Jitsu,” just some fun action, some cheesy dialogue and a cool alien. Instead, we’re given loads of long, unremarkable fight scenes with obvious body doubles, kitschy dialogue that positively drips with queso and an ET in an ill-fitting Halloween costume.
“Jiu Jitsu” feels like warmed-over “Predator” with high kicks, samurai swords and a botched video game style.
Seven years after DreamWorks’ “The Croods” reinvented and recycled “The Flintstones,” minus the brontosaurus ribs, for a new generation comes a sequel, “The Croods: A New Age,” now in theatres, available soon as a digital rental.
At the start of the new movie the Croods—Grug and Ugga Crood (Nicolas Cage and Catherine Keener) and their kids daughters Eep (Emma Stone) and Sandy (Randy Thom), son Thunk (Clark Duke) and Gran (Cloris Leachman)—have outgrown the cave. In the search for a new, safe home they come across a colorful paradise with walls to protect them from attack and plenty of food. “It sucks out there,” says Ugga (Catherine Keener). “It’s so much better here. Out there if no one has died before breakfast it’s a win.”
As they settle in they find they’re not alone. The Bettermans, Phil (Peter Dinklage), Hope (Leslie Mann) and daughter Dawn (Kelly Marie Tran), a family a rung or three up on the evolutionary ladder already live. They have modern conveniences like windows, irrigation, separate bedrooms and more. “It’s called a shower. You should try it!” The modern stone age family looks down on the Croods. In fact, they’d more rightly be named The Betterthans.
When peril comes their way the Croods and the Bettermans, despite their differences, learn they have more in common than they thought. In this story there’s room for both brains and brawn.
“The Croods: A New Age” hasn’t evolved much since 2013. Like the first movie it is still jam packed with loads of caveman comedy and Paleolithic physical action. The new one has a strong message of female empowerment and the recycles the original’s theme of adversity actually bringing people closer together. It’s a winning, if familiar, combo until the noisy, frenetic ending that, while eye popping, is all sound and fury without much payoff.
The voice cast gamely delivers the story. It’s fun to hear Cage as Grug Crood actually have some fun with a role these days. It’s a welcome step away from his direct-to-the-delete-bin action movies he’s been choosing lately. Stone brings a spirited and adventurous edge to cavegirl Eep, and Reynolds, as the romantic lead, proves that his comic timing translates very well from live action to animation. They trade the often-ridiculous dialogue with ease, milking maximum humour from the script.
“The Croods: A New Age” is chaotic fun, a movie aimed squarely at kids with just enough jokes about raising a family to keep parents interested.
Imagine Noah’s Ark, but with killer CGI animals and a wise-cracking serial killer, and you get the general idea of “Primal,” the latest Nic Cage movie to go straight to VOD.
Frank Walsh (Cage) is a poacher in the jungles of Brazil; a loner who traps exotic animals for export to collectors and zoos in the US. His latest capture, El Fantasma Gato, is beyond rare. Worth maybe $1 million. “It’s a white jaguar,“ he says. “Maybe 350 to 400 pounds. Doesn’t like people.“ “Just like you Frank,“ says his kid sidekick (Jeremy Nazario) in the only comment that passes for character work in the “Primal’s” stripped-down b-movie world.
The action begins with Frank transports the animal on the large cargo ship. Trouble is, the US government is using the same ship to transport a psychopathic killer to justice. Held Hannibal Lecter-style in a cage below deck by Navy doctor Ellen Taylor (Famke Janssen) and Government lawyer Freed (Michael Imperioli), Richard Loffler (Kevin Durand) is a former military man turned international terrorist.
This is a B-movie, so no amount of security, chains or wild animals can stop Loffler from causing havoc on the high seas. Only one man, with a special set of skills and a rare white jaguar, can stop Loffler’s rampage. It’s nature gone wild on the high seas as Walsh snorts, “I’m going hunting.”
“Primal” is the kind of movie Nicolas Cage bangs out between visits to his tax lawyer. It’s a film so far beneath has talent you have to wonder why he signed on. Did he always want to work with a talking parrot? Does he get paid by the cliché these days? Hard to know. What is for sure is that “Primal” is one of those movies where the sheer stupidity of the story supplies the only entertainment value. The thrills fall short and the action is almost nonexistent but it’s almost worth the price of a rental to see Cage try and take down Loffler with a poison blow dart gun or argue with his parrot.
“Primal” will make you yearn for the days when Nic Cage movies like “Con Air,” “Gone in 60 Seconds” and “The Rock” promised and delivered offbeat delights. Cage brings his patented oddball performance style along for the ride but even that isn’t enough to give “Primal’s” bland storytelling and lazy action some zip.
