#46 Zandalee

#46 Zandalee

Year: 1991

Director: Sam Pillsbury
MPAA Rating: NC-17

Epic Co-stars: Judge Reinhold, Steve Buschemi, Aaron Neville

Running Time: 100 mins
Cage Time: 80%
Cage Kills: 0
Cage Flip-outs: 3

Shauna's Review:  Hold on to your butts, boys and girls; this movie is NC-17. Yes, I realize that if you had known Nic Cage was in an NC-17 movie, that would have been on the top of your list from the beginning.  About thirty seconds in, we're looking at a very nice-looking naked chick and Judge Reinhold with a mustache. Already Skyler and James are considering this movie for the Best Nic Cage Movie of All Time.

In a way, this is Cage playing himself.  An introspective artist who is such a genius  that not even he can  understand  his infinite wisdom.

Zandalee is a young woman married to Thierry (Reinhold), a poet and professor who quits to run his father's business after his father's death. Consumed with new stresses and responsibilities, Thierry pulls away from Zandalee, emotionally and physically (that means sex). Thierry's childhood friend Johnny (Dr Cage), a painter, enters the picture. Although he has long, greasy hair and weird glasses, he is Nicolas Cage and thus pulsing with raw magnetism, so we can guess what happens next. That's right, sweaty paint sex.

Cage embraces the NC-17 rating of this film and even provokes it with an open display  his perfectly chiseled manhood.

Turns out they're not very good at being subtle. Everybody knows about their little "liason," including Thierry's mom, who actually approves because she's been having an affair of her own for some-odd decades. They get a little carried away--doing it on the washing machine while Thierry is in the next room--and Thierry figures it out. Meanwhile things get to start weird with Johnny, like rape-in-a-confessional weird. Things pretty much unravel from there.

Best. Freakout. Ever.

Gotta say, this movie is more melodrama than erotic thriller. Feels like a little bit of a cop-out when you just kill people instead of coming up with a better way of resolving their problems. BUT: this movie is ripe for Cage quotes and has a few great Cage moments, including Nic Cage smoking a cigarette in church, and THE. Most amazing Nic Cage freak out. Period. Just fantastic. One other thing: I highly recommend watching this via Netflix-- our disc was a ripped Chinese copy, no joke, and our subtitles were hilariously bad. Really added a new layer to this movie.

Movie quotability:

• "Well, this is first-class accommodations."
• "But if I can't paint, everything just turns to shit."
• "I want to shake you naked and eat you alive, Zandalee."
• "Why is it that the Baptists have all the women and no booze and the Catholics have all the booze and no women?"
• "Without art, without life, you can't climb up the devil's ass and look him in the eye and smile without blinking."
• "You wanna share my peach?"
• "Take me. Take my dumb coon-ass prick inside of you with your husband in the next room."
• "Uh-oh. I don't like Nicolas Cage the rapist. Everything was going just fine until then." -James
• "You speak it once and it's there. A religious heart-ifact." -Steve Buschemi
• "When I go into the kitchen and make toast, I smell your skin. I can't get you out of me."
• "I like how, even when she's dead, she's still trying to pull her skirt up." -James

Plot Holes:

	CAGEamatic	Cinematic
Skyler	Exceeds Expectations	Poor
Shauna
James	3.21	2.37
Martine	!Christmas cards in the Cage!

#45 Adaptation.

#45 Adaptation

Year: 2002

Director: Spike Jonze
MPAA Rating: R

Epic Co-stars: Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper, that guy from Office Space

Running Time: 114 min
Cage Time: 
Cage Kills: 
Cage Flip-outs: 1

Skyler's Review: 

Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) is writing a screenplay about the Orchid Thief and wants to stay true to the book and not snesationalize it with sex, action, love, just for the sake of Hollywood.

I'm already ruining this review. I can't spell. Without those red squiggles, I can't spell a thing. I'm so pathetic. No one will want to read this review. But maybe that is OK, since I am keeping with the movie. Who cares about the audience. If the audience doesn't like it they can read some other blog. It's not my responsibility to write garbage just because the average internet user has the equivalent of a 2nd grade education. I do want them to like me, though.

This movie is worth watching if just for seeing TWO Nicolas Cages on screen.

Dr. Cage also plays Charlie Kaufman's fictional twin brother, Donald. Donald lays around all the time on the ground, and wants to also become a screenwriter, but wants to go to a costly seminar about screenwriting that almost sounds like a scam. Charlie says this is stupid, because a seminar will never help you write something new, which should be the goal for all writers.

 This isn't going well. This isn't interesting at all. I wanted to write something interesting and original, and I'm just sitting here and can't even think about how to recap this movie. I can't find an anmiated gif for this review. I'm terrible.

The story Charlie is writing is about a man (named Laroche) who goes into the swamps in Florida and poaches orchids. He takes Seminole tribe members with him to try and avoid the law, saying that the natives are allowed to poach plants. The goal for Laroche is to poach the 'ghost orchid', which is very rare. Then he plans to cultivate them and sell them for a bunch of money. Then if people can buy the ghost orchid in stores, the flower would be better protected from poachers by decreasing its rarity. Also, you can make drugs.

Why don't girls look at me the way they look at Nicolas Cage. Is it because I'm bald? Women just like confidence; how can I have confidence if I am bald? Maybe I can grow a mustache. I think women like mustaches, or at least a certain kind of woman. I wonder if I would know what to do with the kind of woman that likes mustaches. What if I can't grow a mustache?

The meta-Cage of this movie is amazing. Not only is there Nicolas Cage playing two people (Charlie and Donald), but at one point you get to see Nicolas Cage play Donald acting as Charlie. Good stuff.

Laroche is all about passion and collecting. All he wants is orchids. Before that, he was obsessed with other things. At 10 years old he collected turtles  until he gave up on them and trashed his collection. Then at 17 he collected fish, then one morning woke up and said "fuck fish" and now won't step foot in the ocean. Then he moved on to collecting something else.

If I can just end this review with an exciting animated gif, people will still like it. It doesn't even need to fit with the rest of the review. The audience won't care. I'll find a gif. That's what this needs.

As some point in the movie, we realize that the movie is a meta-movie, because the movie that is playing out is the screenplay that Charlie is currently writing. This becomes clear when Charlie has a breakthrough about how to start the movie. He repeats an echo of what we actually see as at the start of the movie. Toward the end, Charlie writes something and then we see it happen on screen.

This is obviously not from the movie, but is pretty awesome.

Movie quotability:

• Maybe if I were happier my hair wouldn't be falling out?
• You are what you love, not what loves you.
• I can't believe I got shot.  Isn't that fucked up?

Plot Holes:

• None.

	CAGEamatic	Cinematic
Skyler	Exceeds Expectations	Exceeds Expectations
Shauna
James	4.80/5	4.50/5
Martine	!Stayed in the CAGE!

#44 City of Angels

#44 City of Angels

Year: 1998

Director: Brad Silberling
MPAA Rating: PG-13

Epic Co-stars: Meg Ryan, Andre Braugher, Dennis Franz (RON SWANSON CAMEO!)

Running Time: 114 min
Cage Time: 90%
Cage Kills: 2
Cage Flip-outs: 1 (meh)

Shauna's Review: 

Just to give you a little background here, I am a female person. Therefore, I like Meg Ryan movies. (I am watching Sleepless in Seattle at this very moment, no joke.) I kind of couldn't believe that I had never seen this movie before, given that it stars both Lord Cage and the aforementioned Ms. Ryan. I even considered "pre-watching" this one prior to movie night, so that I could actually hear the dialogue (it's like watching movies with Statler and Waldorf). Boy, would that have been a waste of 114 minutes. 

This wallpaper is an accurate representation of the quality of this film. 

Within two minutes, it became apparent that this movie is stupid. What tipped me off were the hundreds of poorly photoshopped men in black trench coats, sitting on billboards all over Los Angeles. Nothing could be lamer than a movie that desperately announces, "This is esoteric and interesting! This is deep and cool!" No, it's not. Just because you talk about death doesn't make you deep, and unfortunately, just because you managed to snag Dr Cage doesn't mean that you have made a good movie (boy, have we learned that lesson). Granted, I only heard about 30% of the dialogue, but that was plenty. 


The basic premise of the movie is as follows: Seth (Cage) is one of hundreds of angels who, dressed like Neo, stalk invisibly around Los Angeles, both saving people and leading them down (literal) hallways after they die. He meets surgeon Maggie (Meg Ryan) at a hospital and is impressed with her determination to save her patient, as well as her anguish when the patient dies. Seth becomes convinced that Maggie saw him in the operating room, and stalks her. He allows himself to become visible to her, and she becomes equally (inexplicably) infatuated with him . Seth, being an angel, is unable to truly sense anything-- touch, smell, taste, etc-- but he learns that he has the choice to fall to Earth (literally) and become mortal. Will he choose such a fate? WHO CAN SAY?? 

Watching. Always watching. 

Fortunately, Cage made this movie in what I consider his "peak hotness" years (the Rock-Con Air-Face/Off era). Unfortunately, he is a creepy Watson. (James considers this Cage's creepiest role, even surpassing Eddie). The scenes in this movie are wildly repetitive, in that they are usually something like this: open on someone (usually Meg Ryan) in the kitchen/ bathtub/ operating room, talking to someone/ taking a bath/ performing surgery, pan out and see Nic Cage standing behind the refrigerator door/ sitting in a chair next to the tub/ watching from the corner. Basically, you may not see Cage at first, but you know he's there, lurking in the corner and watching, creepily.

Nicolas Cage gets me all hot and bothered.

Even if you buy all this lame hokum about angels and death, blah blah blah, the fundamental premise of this movie as a chick flick is deeply flawed. Meg Ryan plays a successful cardiothoracic surgeon. Her boyfriend is kind of lame, but she could definitely find another one because she is rich, young, and attractive. She meets this weird guy who says he works as a messenger; he lives in a library, he doesn't blink, he never changes his clothes, and he talks in a quiet voice about death all the time. Then Meg Ryan takes a bath and drinks Rolling Rock while fantasizing about this guy, who must be the creepiest guy she ever met. What? Now you're in love? What? Also, WATCH OUT, HE'S BEHIND THE FRIDGE! 

Movie quotability:

• James: "Is he an angel in this movie, or Batman?"
• "You've definitely been beeped."
• "What are you, like a bike messenger?" "I am a messenger for God."
• Skyler: "He's going on some kind of man date with this... fatty."
• James: "That's a sweet-looking dog. Never mind, that's just a fucking yellow lab."
• "Why do you wear the same clothes all the time? Why won't you give me your phone number? ...are you married?"
• "Where are you from?" "Up."

Plot Holes:

• Nic Cage says, "What do you like best?" And the girl says, "Pajamas."
• Room full of babies (I guess that's called a "nursery") is completely quiet. 
• Angels steal library books. 
• Nic Cage and Meg Ryan go to a farmer's market. Can people see him now? He's carrying a basket. Do they just see a basket bobbing around in mid-air?
• I wasn't watching this movie very closely, but it seems weird that Meg Ryan would go to Dennis Franz and say, "I don't understand a God who would let us meet if there's no way we can be together," if she didn't know that Dennis was also a fallen angel, ie. someone who had an understanding of what the fuck she was talking about. 
• Wait, Nic Cage gets to keep her house? Did they get a quickie marriage that we missed out on? Sometime between the tender lovemaking at the steamy shower scene?

	CAGEamatic	Cinematic
Skyler	Poor	Troll
Shauna
James	1.41	0.98
Martine	Stayed in the Cage.

#43 8MM

#43 8MM

Year: 1999

Director: Joel Schumacher
MPAA Rating: R

Epic Co-stars: Joaquin Phoenix, James Gandolfini, Carl Hungus, Catherine Keener

Running Time: 123 mins
Cage Time: 99%
Cage Kills: 2
Cage Flip-outs: 5

Group Review:  When sitting down to watch 8MM I thought, "Isn't Joel Schumacher a good director?"  I looked on IMDB and saw such gems as "St Elmo's Fire" and "Batman Forever" on his resume, which was encouraging... and then I saw "Trespass." So... that doesn't bode well. I guess 8MM could go either way...

This picture is quite possibly the best thing to come out of this film.

Tom Welles (Cage), a private investigator, is summoned to the home of a wealthy widow. The widow reveals to Cage that after the death of her husband, a prominent member of the community, she found among his things an 8mm film of the rape and murder of a young girl. She asks him to investigate the legitimacy of this film and the people involved in its creation. Posing as a federal agent, Cage discovers the identity of the girl, a runaway, and meets her mother, who says that no matter what, she needs to know the truth about what happened to her daughter. Dun-dun-DUNNNN.

Nic Cage almost vomits when initially viewing the film.  It serves as a nice reminder  of a time before the internet when people could still be shocked or offended by stuff.

Although I stated earlier that this movie could go either way, it really didn't.  While it was nowhere near the total swill that is Trespass, it was also nothing that will be getting unanimously positive reviews on this blog.  The ending does bring some decent suspense and there are some "scary" characters, but most of the time I just felt like it was taking a bit too long to get to where ever the hell this movie was going.  This feeling wasn't helped by the fact that a scene that would normally come at the end came in the middle, which made the remainder of the movie "drag ass".

The look of a truly passionate swordsman.  Little know Cage fact: This scene single handedly landed his role in Season of the Witch.

Cage's acting was on point with the general style of the movie.  Pretty middle of the road; nothing  worth the praise of an academy award or worth the self loathing he must have had after his initial viewing of Ghost Rider.  Some of his high points include delivering all of his lines like a man who's had the blood drained out of him and being the worlds worst deliverer of bad news over the phone.  Everyone he makes a phone call to ends up sobbing on the floor.  In the end I only came away with two things:  Never use the word "snuff" when talking to Latino porn lords and that there is a dark side of George Costanza that we never saw on Seinfeld.  Use that information however you see fit.

Movie quotability:

• "Wait, so we're watching a Nic Cage film??" -Martine
• "Why is every word that comes out of Nicolas Cage's mouse so... goddamn... amazing?" -James
• "His wife is bullshit." -James
• "Is that painting a picture of Jon Voight?" -Geoff
• Nic Cage: "Mrs. Christian." Nathan (sings): "Sister Christian..."
• Nathan: "There's no lights in this movie." Skyler: "That's why it's a dark comedy."
• "I'd hate to see you caught in one of those every day situations that calls for a battery-operated vagina, and you don't have one." -Joaquin Phoenix
• "Hey! It's like a gas station, you pay before you pump." -JP
• "There's things that you're gonna see that you can't un-see. They'll stick in your brain." -JP
• "That's great. Snuff 2: The Resurrection." -JP
• "What if it's not the right guy? He's like, 'Hey, you know how you got stabbed? Now I'm going to kick the shit out of you.'" -Shauna
• "You dance with the devil, the devil doesn't change. The devil changes you." -JP
• "George Costanza!" - Martine

Plot Holes:

• Why did he need to go out of town to investigate this? If he didn't know anything about the film, how would he know where to look for the girl?
• Man has two sons named Warren.
• What humans talk this way?
• It's dark all the time in Hollywood.
• Cage loiters aimlessly in back yards looking like a real creeper and nobody seems to care.

	CAGEamatic	Cinamatic
Skyler	Poor	Acceptable
Shauna
James	3.19/5	3.26/5
Martine	!Christmas shopping in the CAGE!

#42 Captain Corelli's Mandolin

#42 Captain Corelli's Mandolin

Year: 2001

Director: John Madden
MPAA Rating: R

Epic Co-stars: Penelope Cruz, Christian Bale, Olivander

Running Time: 131 mins
Cage Time: 90%
Cage Kills: 0
Cage Flip-outs: 1

James' Review:  I must admit that my expectations were pretty low going into this one which is the prefect place to be just before being MILDLY ENTERTAINED!  Reviews from friends told me this was going to be a slow going chick flick with plenty of overacted emotional trash, but what I actually got was a medium moving chick flick with a shamanic Cage totally nailing his role as an eccentric Italian falling in love with a pretty hot chick.

Dr. Cage plays Captain Antonio Corelli; a WWII era Italian Captain stationed on a small Greek island.  Luckily for Captain C and his buddies, the Italian forces in Greece aren't playing too big of a roll in Hitler's master plan.  This leaves plenty of time for them to drink, sing, almost blow themselves up, and most important of all: try to bang the locals.  All this is very easy to do with only a single German soldier on the island who is too overwhelmed with lazy Italians to have any authority.  It isn't until the German army comes back to town and messes with the Captain's hot new love toy that he finally straightens up and grows a pair to defend the ones he loves.

As with Next, I'm pretty sure the whole purpose of this movie was to allow Cage to make out the a beautiful woman who is not his wife.  Success!

Although the flip-out count is painfully low in Captain Corelli's Mandolin there are a few bright moments that can keep even an action loving Cage fan mildly interested.  First off, even though Cage isn't explosive, he still entertains with a mediocre italian accent and some ridiculous eccentricities like counting off forty-five bars of silence before playing a solo on his mandolin.  His character oozes with such confidence that almost everything he does is entertaining because it's delivered in a slightly restrained yet classic Nouveau Shamanic style.  Second, Christian Bale fans will enjoying seeing him in a slightly different role than usual.  The best way to describe him would be "douche bag", yet I think most of the ladies will agree that he still looks pretty hot.  And finally, there are at least a half a dozen sets of boobs.  Most of these are from random Greek women which are great, but the attentive viewer will be rewarded with full dual nippage from the beautiful Penelope Cruz.  

The unfortunate reality of this film.

Although Captain Corelli's Mandolin doesn't pack the usual Cage punch with crazy flip-outs,  high flying explosions, and memorable lines, it does provide a unique role for Dr. Cage to impress us with once again.  A short hair cut allows him to portray a mildly attractive man while his er of confidence allows him to charm the audience almost as much as he does Ms. Cruz.  The main problem here was the length of the film.  Had it been cut about 30 minutes shorter and not such a test on my attention span, my tits would have been out there for Cage right next to Penelope's.

Movie quotability: total crap

• "This is terrible. I was so happy five minutes ago, looking at his butt... and now he's crying." -Shauna (of Christian Bale)
• "That is a purely psychological effect." -Penelope's dad, of a 'miracle' healing
• "I long to feel something... even if it is only pain." -Penelope; "Oh, you're going to be feeling something." -James; "A shot of Vitamin C, heh heh." -Skyler
• "Bella bambina at two o'clock!"
• "Fuck off. If you don't know what 'fuck off' means, you're welcome to come in and we'll show you. We refuse to surrender to a nation that we have defeated in Albania, and we reserve the right to surrender to a German officer of significant rank. So fuck off."
• "He even sings Shamanic." -Skyler
• "Loves enters by the eyes and also lives by the eyes, take it from me."
• "When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, and then it subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots are become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the desire to mate every second of the day. It is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every part of your body. No... don't blush. I am telling you some truths. For that is just being in love; which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over, when being in love has burned away. Doesn't sound very exciting, does it? But it is! "
• "This makes me realize I should write a note to Nic Cage before something like this happens to ME. That's the whole point of this movie." -James

Plot Holes:

• None, a flawless script.

	CAGEamatic	Cinamatic
Skyler	Acceptable	Acceptable
Shauna
James	2.19/5.00	2.74/5.00
Martine	! Stayed in the Cage !

#41 National Treasure: Book of Secrets

#41 National Treasure:  Book of Secrets

Year: 2007

Director: Jon Turteltaub
MPAA Rating: PG

Epic Co-stars: Jon Voight, Ed Harris, Ty Burrell, Harvey Keitel, Diane Kruger

Running Time: 124 mins
Cage Time: 99%
Cage Kills: 0
Cage Flip-outs: 2

Skyler's Review: 
Alright, here we go. A second National Treasure. This time Ben Gates (Cage) is super famous  for finding all that gold in the last movie. So Gates is telling the story of his ancestors  and some guy (Ed Harris) stands up and reveals that he has a page from of a diary that indicates that the Gates family might be traitors to Lincoln and the Union during the Civil War. This, of course, upsets Nic Cage, so he goes into full-on high-powered investigation mode: he has to prove that there is another amazing gold treasure room to somehow prove his family's standing.

Ed Harris blackmails Cage into jumping into clue finding mode.

To set up the movie at the beginning, Riley makes some kind of  joke about the IRS taking his car due to "taxes." That actually sounds a lot like Nic Cage, and how the IRS took his stuff due to "taxes." Did he write this movie? Later they show the inside of a giant house that is supposed to be Ben's. Was that actually Nic Cage's house? This all made the movie extra special, making us feel closer to Dr. Cage's personal life. 

We may have stole this out of a desk in Buckingham Palace and security/bad guys are moments behind us, but let's take a moment to look at it in plain sight.

The rest of the movie unfolds in what you would expect from a quest-based farce. Nic Cage and his crew break into high-security venues to steal historical artifacts and run away from bad guys with guns. No target is too high profile, no location is too high of security. I mean, he's Nic Cage, for goodness sake. His charisma is off the charts, so he can bluff his way out of any situation. There is no catching this guy.

They always end up in some cave with some kind of ancient yet unrealistically sophisticated technology.

All in all, this is a great film. Nicolas Cage is totally in his element: freak outs, ridiculous lines delivered with conviction, and every emotion that they make. I can't wait to see what they try to steal and break into in the next one! Bravo, Cage!

Movie quotability:

• "Do you know what the taxes are on five million dollars? Six million dollars." -Riley
• "Of course someone else is after the treasure. That's the axiom of treasure hunting."-Riley
• "That's ABSURD." -Dr Cage

• "So let's recap: We've broken into Buckingham Palace, and the Oval Office, stolen a page from the President's super-secret book, and actually kidnapped the President of the United States. What are we gonna do next, short-sheet the Pope's bed?" -Riley

• "I'm gonna kidnap him. I'm gonna kidnap the President of the United States." -Cage

• "Bangers and mash. Bubbles and squeak. Smoked eel pie. Haggis!" -Cage

• Riley: "So, what's new with you?" Ben: "Well, my girlfriend kicked me out, I'm living with my dad, and my family killed President Lincoln." Riley: "All right."

• "That was not love. It was excitement, adrenaline, and tequila. I was trying to get course credit." -Helen Mirren

• "This movie even insults the intelligence of Nicolas Cage fans." -James

Plot Holes:

• Ben Gates doesn't speak French? I thought he spoke like every language ever. 
• Ben Gates can smell perfume around a giant bouquet of flowers. She must really reek.
• Everything about the hack into the London Police Database
• There is no Section 25 of Article 1 of the Maryland Constitution. Lawyered.
• If the Presidents' Book is a book known only to the presidents, then how does Ben Gates (non-president) know about it?
• Giant stone teeter-totter. What the fuck.

	CAGEamatic	Cinematic
Skyler	Outstanding	Exceeds Expectations
Shauna
James	4.13/5	3.11/5
Martine	!Stayed in the CAGE!

#40 Next

#40 Next

Year: 2007

Director: Lee Tamahori
MPAA Rating: PG-13

Epic Co-stars: Jessica Biel, Julianne Moore

Running Time: 96 minutes
Cage Time: 99%
Cage Kills: 0
Cage Flip-outs: 0

Skyler's Review: 

Whenever I see a movie by Saturn Films (Dr. Cage's label), I like to imagine how the Master of Film picks out a screenplay. For "Next" I imagine Nic sitting in a hot tub with a buddy of his and Cage says, "I really want to make out with Jessical Biel. I wonder how I could do that." His friend says, "I always thought it would be cool to have a movie where the main character can see the future; but, like, only the next two minutes, or something. That'd be pretty cool." And hence, film history was made.

Nic Cage's character has the magic power to scry into the future. The fire-flower thing is just CGI.

Basically the plot works like this: Frank Caddilac (Cage) has some sort of mutant power that lets him see 2 minutes into the future. This allows him to dominate in fist fights and elude the cops pretty well. He also makes a decent living at the blackjack table. Other than that, he tries to keep his abilities secret, fearing that the government will want to take him for their own ends. Frank then sees a girl, the same way he sees the future, but this is much more than 2 minutes into the future. He makes it his mission to find this girl (Biel) so he can have sex with her. There is a scene in which he gets to try out about 20 pickup lines before finding one that works, thanks to his abilities. 


Then comes the bad guys. There is a group of terrorists that want to blow up LA. The counter-terrorism guys are completely inept and are essentially useless. They know there is a bomb in the city, somehow they are good enough to know that, but that is all. Then that chick from The Big Lebowski has an idea when she sees surveillance video of Nic Cage totally evading the casino police. She decides that he must be able to see the future and that he is their only hope of finding the nuclear bomb. The CTs then spend 100% of their resources trying to apprehend Frank Caddilac for his "see the future" ability, NOT look for the bomb. You can figure out the the rest on your own.

At this point, Cage's character is fully cooperating with the authorities. Why then do they need to hold his eyes open?

There are some real problems with trying to make a movie with a plot like this work. For starters, the guy can see the future and so he reacts to it. That means that what the audience sees is Cage fail at something, try again; fail, try again; fail, try again; such that a 10 second action can be dragged out into minutes. This is cute at first, but then you start to think, "alright, I get it, he is virtually trying out many options, cut to the chase..." That is the 10 second stuff. Then there are also full 2 minute conversations that happen, but are then erased because Frank decides to change his mind at the last moment.

The film Next is most widely known for the Nicolas Cage "my hair is a bird" internet meme.

It is a cool idea, however, so you get a pass for that. As far as the counter-terrorism guys though, it is ridiculous. First of all, ZERO "experts" have any problem with trying to hunt down a guy because Julianne Moore says that "she thinks he has clairvoyance." Nope, they go in full lock stock and barrel to get this innocent civilian so that he can tell them where the bomb is. Remember he can only see 2 minutes into the future. This means they are going to all this trouble tracking down "some guy" (which takes multiple days) so they can get a 2 minute head start on a nuke in LA. What is their magic plan for this? How will he know where the bomb went off? They stick him in front of a TV saying that "as soon as that bomb goes off, the news will report the location." As soon as it goes off? Yeah, right. Even breaking news takes a minute to get on the air. What if they are at commercial? So this eats into the 2 minute window, we're talking 1 minute, tops.

On the plus side, we do get to see some epic slow-motion bird hair, and a moment when there are 20+ Nicolas Cages on screen. It was worth it for that alone. If Nicolas Cage could really make copies of himself, there is no end to how many National Treasures he could find/steal!

Movie quotability:

• "Did you know that Nicolas Cage looks great without a shirt on, even though he's a forty-year old man?" -James
• "We need to use all of our resources to find the guy who can see two minutes into the future!!" -Skyler
• "Oh my god, a dead hooker! That's awesome." -James
• "I've seen every possible ending. None of them are good for you."
• "It happened. It just hasn't happened yet."
• "Here is the thing about the future. Every time you look at, it changes, because you looked at it, and that changes everything else."
• "You have one way out of this... that wasn't it."
• "Every once in a while what we think is magic is the real deal hiding behind a $50.00 trick, because the alternative is impossible for others to live with."
• "Did you hear about the zen monk who ordered a hot dog? He said he'd have one with everything."

Plot Holes:

• Nothing in this movie makes sense. Let's just leave it at that.
• Sheets stick to Jessica Beal's boobs even when she's sitting up in bed.

	CAGEamatic	Cinamatic
Skyler	Exceeds Expectations	Dreadful
Shauna
James	3.95/5	1.79/5
Martine	!Baked in the Cage!