It has been a crazy and rather unpleasant few months, but this isn’t the place to dwell on that, not when we have a Cage-Off to see through to the finish. I left you with the last quarter of the first knockout stage to go, and I’m going to reveal the outcomes of the final ties in a moment. But if you have no clue what the Cage-Off even is, check it out from the beginning here:
So we were looking at the first knockout phase:
Honeymoon in Vegas VS Birdy
Jack Singer vs Al Columbato. Alan Parker’s PTSD drama vs Andrew Bergman’s romantic comedy. We really have two totally different films facing off here. There’s no question that Birdy is a powerful and harrowing film which shows how war can ruin lives. Honeymoon in Vegas is daft, but kind of charming in its silliness.
For a long time, William Wharton’s novel, Birdy, was considered unfilmable. The film tries to capture some of the complexity, as we have Cage’s character, Al Columbato, visiting Matthew Modine’s character, Birdy, in a psychiatric hospital. Interspersed with this narrative is the story of the two characters before they enlisted where we see Birdy’s obsession with birds grow.
Honeymoon in Vegas in nowhere near as complicated or serious. Jack Singer is reluctant to marry. His girlfriend Betsy (Sarah Jessica WParker) gives him an ultimatum, and they decide to marry in Vegas. Alas, Tommy Korman (James Caan) swindles Jack out of some money, and the only way he’ll let him off the debt is if he allows Betsy to spend the weekend with him. I mean, when you put it like that, it’s a little problematic. Tommy seems like a nice guy. He has a comfortable life. And he’s willing to marry Betsy. Only when he realises what he has to lose, does Jack fight to win Betsy back.
If this was some kind of award for best film, Birdy would go through without a doubt. However, this is the Cage/Off, and that’s not how it works. Cage is not the main character. Matthew Modine’s Birdy is. And he’s superb. Cage does a decent job, but he’s eternally in his shadow. Honeymoon in Vegas has this goofy kind of outdated early 90s charm to it. And maybe it also says a lot about me, but I’m putting the silly film through to the second knock-off round. I mean, this is the Cage/Off. He jumps out of a plane dressed as Elvis alongside a bunch of other singing Elvises. That’s pretty tough to beat.
Face/Off VS Valley Girl
Action Cage vs early, floppy hair Cage. John Woo’s 1997 action thriller vs Martha Coolidge’s 1983 teen romantic comedy. Wild criminal Castor Troy/FBI Special Agent Sean Archer vs Hollywood punk Randy.
You’d think this would be a simple win for Face/Off, but in truth it hasn’t aged brilliantly. I don’t think any of John Woo’s Hollywood action films have. (See also Windtalkers, which isn’t part of the Cage/Off as I only watched that this year). Mind you, a 1983 romantic comedy has also aged about as well as you would expect.
Tenuous link between the two films:
Randy uses the word ‘face’ in one of the worst quips you’ll ever hear.
Let’s start with Face/Off. The beginning is wild. Nicolas Cage makes Castor Troy an absolutely ridiculous villain. That frequently shown clip where he’s dressed as a priest, dancing and grinning – first few minutes of the film. He actually spends more of the film in the role of Sean Archer post face-swap. The whole idea is ridiculous, but you just have to let go of it. So we have Nicolas Cage as Sean Archer struggling to wear the face of the man who killed his son. But sometimes, to trick people, he still have to pretend to be Castor Troy. Meanwhile we have John Travolta being villainous, not in the character of Castor Troy in the body of Sean Archer. He grins maniacally a lot. A lot. And too often the encounters between then are just a bunch of gun-play. It’s still a lot of fun, but it could have been a hell of a lot more.
Watching Valley Girl for the first time in 2023 was a strange experience. This is a film that was 40 years old at the time about a place I don’t know. There’s conflict between the Valley and Hollywood? I did not know this. I did not much care. But then I kind of did. Coolige does a good job of establishing Julie’s original boyfriend as arrogant and selfish. Randy seems a lot more fun. When all of her friends are then prejudiced against Randy because of where he’s from I did make me feel for him and want to see them end up together. Who would have thought that dude with the fluffy, floppy hair and the big doe eyes would go on to have a career that lasted over 40 years and roles in over 100 films.
But anyway you look at it, Valley Girl is still a bit of a clichéd romantic comedy, albeit a lot of fun. Those moments in Face/Off where Cage is allowed to go OTT are enough to put it through to the next round.
Bangkok Dangerous VS Willy’s Wonderland
Cage doesn’t have a great deal to say in either of these films. Well, nothing in Willy’s Wonderland, and a little more than nothing in Bangkok Dangerous. So, we have the hitman, Joe, vs the silent janitor. The Pang Brothers’ 2008 Hollywood remake of their own action thriller vs Kevin Lewis’s 2021 action horror comedy which has similarities to Five Nights at Freddies.
In Bangkok Dangerous Cage plays the role of a hitman very seriously, doing everything with meticulous detail. His kills are largely clean. He doesn’t form many relationships. However, this starts to change. He longs for some kind of lengthy and meaningful relationship, but when you may the bills with blood, eventually you’re going to leave a trail. There are some sweet moments with the woman he tries to build a relationship with, a deaf-mute pharmacist named Fon. In the original, it was the hitman character who was a deaf mute, but Hollywood couldn’t have a star without a line. Ironic, then, that the Cage/Off should place Bangkok Dangerous up against a film in which Cage genuinely doesn’t speak. The difference being that Willy’s Wonderland doesn’t take itself seriously at all, and instead of expressing himself with words, Cage gets to express himself with the violent murder of enormous animatronics. And through his cleaning regime. And dancing at the pinball table.
Willy’s Wonderland is just gloriously silly. Regardless, Cage’s character has his own logic. He’s a man with a job to do: clean up Willy’s Wonderland overnight. Help himself to soda. And he does. The demonic stuffed animals are just a barrier to stop him doing a job he’s agreed to do. It’s the kind of movie the Cage/Off is make for. You watch in disbelief and have one hell of a fun time in doing so. Of course it’s making round two.
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent VS The Retirement Plan
We end the knockout stage with two films from this decade. Nicolas Cage playing a fictionalised version of Nicolas Cage as well as his spirit animal Nick Cage vs Matt – former contract killer or secret agent now retired to the Cayman Islands. It’s Tim Gormican’s action comedy vs Tim Brown’s 2023 crime comedy thriller – that’s right, a battle of the Tims.
There’s a danger, when you play yourself that you can become something of a parody. Nicolas Cage has played so many wildly different roles over the years though, that he already seems to exist on a plane beyond that. He revels in this hyper-real version of himself, and with Pedro Pascal alongside him, the two just seem like they’re having tremendous fun. You then have this inner voice made flesh in the form of Nick Cage, a young, floppy haired version of himself that calls him out and tells him what to do.
So what do you do after you’ve played yourself? Cage was incredibly busy in 2023. What roles did he take on? Dracula in Renfield. A cowboy after revenge in The Old Way. Possibly the devil in Sympathy for the Devil (it’s on the watchlist). A man who appears in everyone’s dreams in Dream Scenario. Then there’s this retired killer. In The Retirement Plan, Cage is reunited with Ron Perlman. They starred together in Season of the Witch (not in the Cage/Off, as I didn’t watch it in 2023 – it’s pretty good though). This film was perhaps a change for the two of them to hang out and have some fun in the Cayman Islands. And if a film gets made along the way, that would be just great. There’s not a great deal to the story. Cage’s daughter, and by extension granddaughter have got into a spot of bother with some criminals. Jackie Earle Haley utterly hams it up. Ron Perlman’s Bobo is trying to show his complex side. There’s this weird Othello thing going on. Ernie Hudson’s Cage’s mate, and it’s always good to see him, too. The story really is nothing special. When it is fun is the way Cage’s character, Matt, dispatches with the villains. The hand-to-hand combat is brilliantly choreographed. There’s always disbelief from supporting characters that this old dude has dispatched with another one of the henchmen. It’s played for laughs, and if you don’t take it too seriously, it’ll pass the time in a pleasant way. It does feel like it could have achieved a little more. A bit more polish with the script would have gone a long way to making this a contender. It did well to get out of its group.
The scene in which Nicolas Cage and Pedro Pascal’s Javi are foxed by a wall alone is enough to see this through to the second round.
So that brings the first knock out round to a close, and leaves us with just 16 films to Face Off in the next part of the Cage Off.
