The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
2022
**
Director: Tom Gormican
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Pedro Pascal, Sharon Horgan, Ike Barinholtz, Alessandra Mastronardi, Jacob Scipio, Neil Patrick Harris, Tiffany Haddish, Lily Mo Sheen, Katrin Vankova
After Nicolas Cage fails to secure his dream role, he agrees to take $1 million and make an appearance at a superfan's birthday party in Majorca. He ends up bonding with his host and the two plan a film together, but how well does he actually know his new friend? Many younger people know Nicolas Cage only as the overacting guy in Internet memes, but he is an Academy Award winning actor who now gets to play a fictional version of himself. This has been done before by Jean-Claude Van Damme in JCVD, by James Franco, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, and others in This Is the End, and obviously by John Malkovich in Being John Malkovich. The predictable film within the film plot is familiar from The Player. Tom Gormican's action comedy is filled with meta-humour, but the script is not nearly as clever and original as it thinks it is. There are some initially promising ideas, but the end result is smug, dull, and unfunny.
