The group stages of Cage Off 2024 continue on this special day, Nicolas Cage’s 60th birthday.
The introductory information on Cage Off 2024 is here.
If you missed the results from groups A-D, they’re here.
Now we’re going to look at who has made it through from groups E-H and look at the updated knockout phase. We’ll also look at our first third-place film to squeeze into the knock outs.
What a group this was! Surely the group of death, with 4 films that all had a chance of making it through. In the end, Vampire’s Kiss is a runaway winner. It’s an early Cage role, but one in which his character is utterly unhinged. Unhinged helped Mom and Dad squeezr through too in second place. It was between The Family Man and The Retirement Plan for thrid place. The Retirement Plan is far from the strongest of Cage’s 2023 films, but the action scenes helped it to squeeze through. Old-looking man is actually highly trained assassin is hardly original, but Cage has fun with it. Of all the groups so far, this is the one which has felt a little unfair. Another seed ends bottom, but against other films, The Family Man might have squeezed through. The trouble is Cage plays it too straight, and it’s rather cliched. It’s a modern day A Christmas Carol/ A Wonderful Life tale in which Cage glimpses the life he could have had if he’d not left Tia Leone at the airport. It’s kind of charming, and I’d watch it again. Sorry, The Family Man, you didn’t quite do enough.
Some pretty big-hitters in Group F, plus Jiu Jitsu, which never had a chance. It’s among the worst films I’ve ever seen. Cage at least has fun in his role, but the rest is terrible. The effevts are like something from the original Playstation. The story is cliched nonsense. As for the top two, The Rock squeezed ahead of Renfield largely because Cage’s Dracula in Renfield, while brilliant, doesn’t feature all the way through, with Renfield being the key focus. Stanley Goodspeed in The Rock is a near perfect Cage character – bug-eyed, intense, and put under incredible pressure. Cage’s Dracula is immense though. He looks like he’s having great fun in every scene he chews his way through. Both films will play a huge part in the knockout phase. It Could Happen to You was a comfortable third. It’s a charming film. Bridget Fonda and Cage work well together – but is it good enough to be one of the best third-placed films?
Another group which sees the seed tumble out. Pig is a superb film, which becomes better (and makes much more sense) as the narrative unfolds. It’s a performance full of intensity and a film I could watch again and again. Willy’s Wonderland is intense in quite another way, that being a remarkably silly way. A mute Cage dances around while playing pinball and beats the stuffing out of a bunch of animatronics. There’s little more to it than that, but that’s really enough. In third is Racing with the Moon. It’s fine. Cage has more of a supporting role. The film is an easy watch, but there’s nothing particulalry special about it. City of Angels, while a seeded film, is a bit of a clunker. Time hasn’t served it well, and the angels watching over humanity just come across as a little creepy now. There’s a moment, when Cage’s angel throws away his powers and can experience things as a human where it feels like it could be fun, but it goes back to being an insipid romance with a sudden and tragic turn at the end.
Easy win for Face/Off simply because Castor Troy is such an intense, over the top character. It perhaps hasn’t aged too well, but still does enough to win the group. Raising Arizona is a little similar in as far as time hasn’t been too kind, and it looks rather dated. It’s still plenty of fun though and made second by a distance above the other two. The Old Way was Cage’s first western. His character is quite interesting. The story is a little clunky, though. Inconceivable finished bottom. It’s not terrible. It surprised me a little. I thought it was going to be a traditional cuckoo narrative, but then it did something slightly different. Cage is very much in the periphery of the action though. It feels like anyone else could have taken his place and it made no difference. That’s not what you want from Cage.
So that’s another four groups and eight more films definitely through to the next round. With only five groups left, we can put through one of the best runners up. So, from groups A-H which of the following squeezes through: Primal, Tokarev, Trapped in Paradise, The Retirement Plan, It Could Happen to You, Racing with the Moon, The Old Way.
The best of that bunch is The Retirement Plan. It might be its newness that helps it squeeze throguh, but it’s through nonetheless. It doesn’t mean that’s the end of the road for the others as there are still 5 more thrid place spots.
Let’s take a look at what that does to the look of the knockout phase.
A couple more ties have been finalised. Vampire’s Kiss vs Raising Arizona pit two early Cage roles against each other. Bangkok Dangerous was one of the weeker seeds that made it through, and it facces the utterly bizarre Willy’s Wonderland.
Come back next time when the last of the group standings are revealed and the full knock-out bracket is published.
Word searches, Cagedoku, odd one out and many other types of puzzle appear in The Unofficial and Unathorised Nicolas Cage Puzzlebook, the official sponsor of the Cage Off 2024.