The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022) Review

The second film directed by Joe Gormican stars Nicolas Cage as a fictionalised version of himself, who must accept an offer to attend the birthday party of crazed super fan Javi Gutierrez (Pedro Pascal). But, when the CIA get involved and reveal Javi is part of a dangerous drug cartel, Cage must channel his most iconic characters in order to save himself and his loved ones.

This is certainly a film where the more familiar you are with/ more you like Cage’s filmography, the more you’ll get from it. There are countless references throughout to his most iconic roles and films, (with Con Air, Face/ Off, The Rock and National Treasure just to name a few that I was most happy were in there). While not all the jokes land, the majority do, and it was so refreshing to see Cage play with some of the choices made in his career, both good and bad, in a self aware, self deprecating way.

Despite being an homage to some of Cage’s zaniest characters, I was really glad to see this movie work in and of itself as an action/buddy comedy. Given it is a self proclaimed “character driven adult drama”, it is heavily reliant on the chemistry between the leads, but Cage and Pascal delivered in spades, with their dynamic being comfortably the best element of the film. Despite some of the CIA/ cartel subplots around them feeling a bit generic and convoluted, a really well written, meta script gives the two leads free reign to create an instantly memorable duo.

Also, even though I found the CIA/ cartel related subplot a bit messy at times, I thought the family element with Nick, his daughter and his ex wife was very engaging and genuinely affecting, and the self aware way it was approached was legitimately moving. For a film that could have just coasted on its bizarre premise, it doesn’t just play it safe and puts more care into its characters and themes than expected, which can only be commended.

Overall, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is a charming breath of fresh air, a nostalgic throwback to Cage’s 90’s heyday and most of all is a fun and fitting tribute to the whacky brilliance of an often misunderstood actor.

Choose or Die (2022) Review

Choose or Die is a new Netflix horror film, starring Iola Evans, Asa Butterfield Robert Englund and Eddie Marsan, with a feature directorial debut for Toby Meakins. The plot concerns a broke college dropout, who finds and plays an obscure 80’s computer game in hope of claiming the unclaimed prize money, but the game curses her and she is faced with a series of terrifying challenges.

Not that I was shocked given Netflix’s overall track record with original horror films, but this film was an utter mess. While conceptually it sounds interesting, the execution is tedious and nonsensical, and it runs out of steam alarmingly quick. It feels a bit like an extended Black Mirror episode, but without any of the intelligent writing of characters and stories that Black Mirror has. The game and its curse make absolutely no sense as to how it interacts and affects the real world, which would have been forgivable if the wackiness had a consistency, but it tries to be so grounded that the lore of this game becomes a big turn off, with the plot just trundling from one set piece to the next, seemingly completely unconcerned with any story in between.

The acting is not particularly poor, certainly passable, but the writing of the characters is so paper thin that it can’t stay afloat. We know so little about them, thus meaning we don’t care much about them to begin with, but the script makes makes them take some very strange choices as it progresses, which sours you more, as often can be the case in these quirky concept horror films. Completely dumb decisions that nobody else would ever make render this more and more frustrating as it goes along. Horrific things will happen to the protagonist or their loved ones, and then a scene later they’ll be going about their day unaffected.

Finally, I’m not sure why it is how it is but the soundtrack didn’t work at all for me, very jarring. High tempo rap songs thrown in almost completely at random, as if the director is trying to cover up the fact he can’t make a scene tense or gripping, and making the tone more uneven than the storyline itself had managed.

So overall, this is a nonsensical plot headed by paper thin characters, intertwined with lazy human drama subplots that we’ve seen time and time again, with an incompatible soundtrack. Instead of Choose or Die, just choose not to watch this film.