Review of The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022) by Compi24 — 03 May 2022

In what honestly felt like some sort of cosmic culmination of all things good, not only did co-writer/director Tom Gormican manage to get Nicolas Cage to read his Nicolas Cage spec, but the man convinced Cage himself to star in it. This has to be the most transcendent meta-comedic event since the likes of "This Is The End" and "Tropic Thunder," no?

Was anybody else a bit let down by this?

Let me start off by saying this: "The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent" is by no stretch a bad film or time at the theater. It's a solidly structured, generally entertaining buddy movie with a pair of likable leads and some decent thematic groundwork. Did this movie capture what I think is the spirit of the zeitgeist's obsession with and celebration of Cage, his cult status and his body of work? I'm very sad to say that I just didn't. This is far too low energy and far too sensible in its approach to Nicolas Cage myth. We've already established this as being more of a "version" of Nicolas Cage, rather than an honest-to-god biopic of the man or even a depiction of actual events involving the man. Why not crank the madcap up to eleven? Lean harder into some of the criminally underutilized surrealism teased in the film? Why not actually showcase Cage's characteristically over-the-top commitment to the craft even more? That scene where Cage and Pascal are trying to scale the wall while on LSD? That's the energy I wanted for the entire film. Just didn't happen. No other moment, scene or sequence approached it. Again, all of this may appear to clash with the rating above, but this is all more out of frustration than a genuine belief in this being a "bad movie." I really just wish this went a bit harder and played up the promise of its premise in a more unique way. A disappointment to a degree, yes, but I suppose it could have been a whole lot worse.