Having finally seen it, I can confirm it is very silly and not the bonkers brilliant filmmaking of “JCVD,” which had Jean Claude Van Damme, playing himself, stumbling upon a bungled bank heist. What we have instead in ‘Massive Talent’ is a fairly standard action movie. The Cage in ‘Massive Talent’ has a complicated relationship with his daughter, faces bankruptcy, and decides to attend the birthday party of a mafioso superfan (an amusing Pedro Pascal) for the cool sum of a million dollars. A case of mistaken identity has Cage unintentionally recruited by a CIA agent (Tiffany Haddish) and forced to extend his vacation by going undercover at the seaside resort owned by Pascal’s mobster. Numerous self-referential gags ensue, from “Face/Off” to Cage’s little-seen ‘90s bomb “Guarding Tess” are skewered, ditto a reenactment of the pool scene in “Leaving Las Vegas.” What writer-director Tom Gormican seems to forget is that the eccentric legend of Cage stems from the actor’s intense devotion to his craft — no matter how bad a screenplay he may be given, you can bet Cage will give it his all. In “Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” Cage is in on the joke this time, he oddly delivers his performance with a wink and a nod. Cage playing Cage isn’t as enticing as it sounds on-paper, in fact, it’s kind of dull. The go-for-broke nature of his wildest performances is replaced here with a Cage that feels a little too relaxed for his own good. Gormican and his actor play it safe with the narrative, opting for more conventional thrills. In between all the meta-ness are rather blandly shot action scenes that feel both forced and pedestrian. Gormican’s movie is a missed opportunity for Cage to bite the hand that feeds him, it falls flat in its taunting of Hollywood lunacy and ends up being the exact thing it purports to mock. [C+] Contribute Hire me
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