It also gets a lot of mileage out of an engaging bromance.
MOVIE REVIEWS: THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT (R)
For those of you hoping that “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” will be an offbeat slice of meta strangeness in the vein of “Being John Malkovich,” you may walk away from this very accessible comedy feeling disappointed. On the other hand, if you’re a fan of Nicolas Cage and you’re down for a straightforward bromance/action/comedy, you’ll probably walk away happy like I did.
In “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” Cage plays one of the most charismatic roles of his illustrious career; That of himself! Well, that’s not altogether true. He’s more of a hyper-real version of himself. This Cage is a bit down on his luck and when a role he’s actively seeking falls by wayside, he decides to take up his agent’s million-dollar offer to spend a weekend with a wealthy Cage fanboy and aspiring screenwriter Javi Gutierrez. Before long, a tipoff from a CIA agent (played by Tiffany Haddish) leads Cage to realize that things might not be as they seem and that his life and the life of his ex-wife and his young daughter might be in danger. Still, this doesn’t keep him from bonding famously with a seemingly unassuming Guitierrez.
As a love letter to Cage himself, there’s no doubt that this is a very affectionate movie. “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” never laughs at Cage. It’s always laughing with him. It’s clear that the filmmaking team behind this picture loves this iconic actor in the same way Edgar Wright showed off his love of Michael Bay and action movies in “Hot Fuzz.” The references in this film are a lot of fun and are not merely limited to playful lines of dialogue. There are also clever visual cues that recall the likes of “Leaving Las Vegas,” “Wild at Heart,” and a certain Cage collaboration with the aforementioned Michael Bay.
As a love letter to bromance movies, “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” is even better and that’s because Cage and Pascal develop such a genuine onscreen rapport. True, there are generic plot mechanics aplenty in this movie but Cage and Pascal sort of make you forget about all of that. And in fact, for my money, these two prove to have far more chemistry than Channing Tatum and Sandra Bullock had in the recently released “The Lost City,” another movie that banks on its stars rising above a formulaic plot. In “The Lost City” (an ode to “Romancing the Stone”) it didn’t work for me but in this one, it does.
As expected, Cage is engaging and likable, alternating between his gonzo Cage persona and his more understated affable side. As for Pascal, he’s so sweet-natured that you don’t want to believe that he might be a bad guy here. Is he a bad guy? Like I’m going to spoil that in this review.
Listen, “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” doesn’t reinvent the comedy wheel but it has a ton of energy, it has winning chemistry between its charming leads, and it’s bound to put a smile on your face, particularly if you’re a Cage fan. And honestly, who the hell in their right mind isn’t a Cage fan? On a side note; Bonus points for the joyful fashion in which this movie demands that we all seek out and watch “Paddington 2.”
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