So this Friday I went to see Knowing after hearing great reviews from Tyler, my parents, and even Roger Ebert.  I figured it would be a great sci-fi movie and it was.  The idea is extremely creative and executed very well.  But anyway, before seeing the movie my friends and acquaitances were asking me what I was doing on Friday night.  This is basically how the conversations went…

“Hey Kevin, what are you up to tonight?”

“I’m going to see Knowing, want to come?”

“What is it about?”

“It’s a sci-fi movie with Nicholas Cage, supposed to be really good.”

“Oh my god, I hate Nicholas Cage. He is such a bad actor!”

Now this conversation happened at least 5 times, and it seems that the general consensus is that Nicholas Cage is a terrible actor.  I mean maybe I watch more movies than most of the people I was talking too, and maybe they haven’t seen his two excellent performances, but I just could not understand where all this hatred off Nicholas Cage came from. Lets go over his career.

• 1982- A year after his debut, Nicholas Cage had a supporting role in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. It was a good start to Cage’s career.  He’s no Sean Penn, the star of the 1982 comedy, but really no one is so you he can’t worry about that.
• 1986- Cage plays the leading man in Francis Ford Coppola’s Peggy Sue Got Married. I have not seen the movie but it was nominated for the Best Comedy or Musical Golden Globe, and Kathleen Turner (Peggy Sue) was nominated for the Best Actress academy award.  I’m sure Cage held is own in this movie because in the next year he had two star performances.
• 1987- Moonstruck and Raising Arizona.  In Moonstruck Cage starred along with Cher who won the Best Actress academy award for her performance.  I have not seen the movie, but given that it was nominated for Best Picture I assume Nick Cage made a good performance.  On the other hand, I have seen Raising Arizona and Cage is excellent.  He plays an ex-con and  is hilarious in the role.  At this point Raising Arizona was Nick Cage’s best performance and it was great to see that he could pull off a comedic role.
• 1988-1994:  Over these 7 years Nicholas Cage starred in a lot of movies; however, none of them were great and Cage did not get a lot of attention.  The problem is when actors have this kind of drought where they pick roles in bad movies they often are considered bad actors.  This is not always the case and that is the problem with the Razzie awards.  Nicholas Cage had a few good performances over this time and experimented with an assortment of roles.  In Honeymoon in Vegas (1992) and Trapped in Paradise (1994), two comedies, Cage was very good and the audience saw glimpses of his excellence in Raising Arizona. I though the two movies were funny, nothing spectacular, but definitely enough to hold you for Nicholas Cage’s brilliance that would come in 1995.
• 1995- Leaving Las Vegas is one of the great forgotten movies of all time.  Nicholas Cage’s performance in the movie, as well as Elizabeth Shue’s, blew me away.  It was one of the greatest I have ever seen and it would have been a crime if he did not win the oscar.  Cage played a severe alcoholic who moved to Las Vegas to drink himself to death.  While in Las Vegas he fell in love with a prostitute but refuses to change his ways.  I have never seen an actor play a character so different from themselves with such ease and perfection.  The movie is completely focused on the two stars and the emotion that they show is incredible.  Nicholas Cage became the character, and even if he never had a good another performance from then on,  there would be no doubt in my mind that he is an extremely talented actor.  Luckily, Nicholas Cage had several good performances after 1995 and reinforced my beliefs.
• 1996-1997- Nicholas Cage starred in three action packed movies, The Rock, Con-Air, and Face-Off. These are three movies that action junkies love and Nicholas Cage did a great job fitting the roles.  The performances were not emotional or oscar worthy, but they were exciting and showed another ability of Cage.
• 1998-2001- Cage had another dry spell over these 4 years.  He did not take on too many big roles and the period was highlighted by Gone in Sixty Seconds.  However, again Cage’s dry spell came to a halt with a brilliant performance.
• 2002- In Adaptation, Cage played both Charlie (the writer of the screenplay) and Donald Kaufman.  The character was extremely complicated, emotional, and distraught, and Nick Cage did a great job over controlling himself and not overplaying the part.  Additionally, Charlie and Donald, twin brothers, had very different personalities, making his performances very difficult.  He did a great job with both of the characters, especially in the scenes where they were interacting.  Nicholas Cage was nominated for his performance, and although Adrien Brody was brilliant in The Pianist, I think Cage deserved his second academy award.
• 2003- In 2003 Nicholas Cage backed up his performance in Adaptation with a comedic yet still dramatic role in Matchstick Men, a great but unknown movie.  Again Cage took on a difficult and complicated part.  He was extremely thrilling and also added the comic relief we saw in his earlier days.
• 2004-Present- Cage has not been taking on as challenging roles in his recent performances.  Instead he has been starring in a lot of movies every year.  I can’t fault him for this decision because clearly it is making him a lot of money; however, it is dissapointing and is hurting his image.  People are doubting his ability when they see him in movies like Ghostrider and Bangkok Dangerous. However, I think Nicholas Cage’s performances in the National Treasure series are great.  They are not extremely difficult, but are fun and very entertaining.  In his most recent movie, Knowing, I think Nicholas Cage was very good.  At some point his acting seemed over the top, but I think it was necessary.  The movie was extremely sci-fi and even though this sounds backwards, you need the acting to be overdramatic in order to seem realistic.

Nicholas Cage is acting in a lot of movies in the next few years, and is likely that we will not see another performance like those in Leaving Las Vegas or Adaptation just yet.  However, his talent cannot be forgotten or ignored.  I think the problem is that the average person has not seen those two movies, Mathstick Men, or Raising Arizona. If you haven’t I suggest you do.  You will not only see an excellent movie, but will have a new respect for Nicholas Cage.  The other problem is that critics who are upset with his recent choices want Nick Cage two give performances like that every year.  I mean, I do too, but that is not realistic.  Hopefully, in the future he will settle down and be more conservative with his role selection.  For now, go see Knowing, enjoy the entertainment in the National Treasure series and don’t forget the talent of Nicholas Cage.

Kevin

1. admin Says:
   April 5th, 2009 at 6:19 pm

   I totally agree. One of my good friends is a movie buff and when we were talking I mentioned that I thought Nick Cage was one of the best actors working today and he went nuts. He hates Nick Cage and he thinks he’s a horrible actor. And that’s nothing against my friend, that seems to be the consensus of most of the public. And along with kevin, I don’t understand it. Leaving Las Vegas is in contention for my favorite movie of all time! And that is largely because of Cage. Adaptation is also one of my favorites and I agree he should have won his second Academy Award. I think by the time that most of our friends were able to see Nick Cage movies they started with his action movies “The Rock” “Con-Air” and so forth. Obviously that is not his best work. I don’t think many of them have seen LLV and most probably haven’t seen Adaptation either. I also think some of the hate comes from people seeing Adaptation and Matchstick Men and thinking Cage was overacting. I personally think those were the correct way to play those characters. His performances worked great for the types of movies they were and really accentuated both characters traits and flaws.
   One movie that Kevin forgot was 1999’s 8MM, written by Andrew Kevin Walker (Se7en), Cage was great as a sort of “soft” detective searching for the origins of a snuff film. It’s a very compelling and EXTREMELY dark movie. It’s another strong performance from Cage.
   Cage will always be one of my favorite actors even if he completely explodes and ruins his career with bad choices (DeNiro). He is one of the very few actors where if they are in a movie I will see it, regardless of what it’s about or how bad the reviews are.
   I also want to comment on the hate that the National Treasure franchise gets. Yes I admit, they’re not the best movies ever but I thought they were extremely entertaining and a lot of fun to watch; and I for one will gladly pay my $10 to see them for as long as they continue.

   -Tyler

2. Andrew Pelt Says:
   May 8th, 2010 at 9:48 am

   I love your blog! Good work. Hope my site get’s so popular too.