#56 G-Force

#56 G-Force

Year: 2009

Director: Hoyt Yeatman
MPAA Rating: PG

Epic Co-stars: Will Arnett, Zach Galifianakis, Sam Rockwell, Tracy Morgan, Penelope Cruz, Jon Favreau, Steve Buschemi

Running Time: 88 mins
Cage Time: 5%
Cage Kills: 0
Cage Flip-outs: 0

Shauna's Review: 

As you may have noticed on the Epic Co-Stars list, there are a lot of freaking famous people in this kid's movie. Most of them are rodents. Dr Cage is a star-nosed mole, featuring his voice from Peggy Sue, in case you were missing it. Zach Galifianakis is probably the most humorous (not saying much) as a human person who talks to guinea pigs. Will Arnett's innate awesomeness is unfortunately subdued to a dull roar, but Penelope Cruz is still pretty goddamn sexy as a guinea pig, go figure.

The mole is the mole! Oh, spoiler alert.

Zach Galifianakis runs a Homeland Security special unit comprised of 3 guinea pigs, a mole (Nic Cage) a fly, and some cockroaches. On the eve of a crucial performance review, they run an op and retrieve a secret file from the computer of an evil bad guy (Bill Nighy, of course). When the big boss (Will Arnett) shows up for the review, the stolen file turns out to be the plans for an espresso maker, and their unit is canned. The animals are taken to a pet shop and must escape to meet back up with Zach. Hilarious pet-related hijinks ensue. It turns out that the espresso maker (and all of the other appliances in the world) is some kind of transformer robot weapon, so the guinea pigs have to save the world from the evil bad guy.

Zach Galifiankis: "This is actually preferable to Hangover 2."

This was actually... not terrible. Not great, certainly, but not terrible. I mean, it's not like this has any real character development or plot interest, but I appreciate the Jerry Bruckheimer style (The Rock, Con Air) in a kid's movie, what can I say? Unfortunately, the soundtrack is 100% Black Eyed Peas, and Cage time is limited.

Movie quotability:

• "I'm a mole, I've got a thing for worms."
• "No escape! I repeat, no escape!"
• "No, not the cage! I don't do cages!"
• "C'mon Specks, act cute." "I don't have that kind of range."
• "I wanted you to think of yourselves as more than just balls of fur, waiting for your next pellet."
• "You ever google the word 'mole'?... Three million entries on how to exterminate them!"

Plot Holes:

• In a movie where guinea pigs are superspies... what plots holes could there be?

	CAGEamatic	Cinematic
Skyler	Acceptable	Poor
Shauna
James	3.14159/5	2.19/5
Martine	Pacified the baby in the Cage.

#53 Astro Boy

#53  Astro Boy

Year: 2009

Director: David Bowers

MPAA Rating: PG

Epic Co-stars: Donald Sutherland, Nathan Lane

Running Time: 94 minutes
Cage Time: 15%
Cage Kills: 0
Cage Flip-outs: 0

Skyler's Review: 
Nicolas Cage is cutting-edge scientist, Dr. Tenma, in the futuristic Metro City. This futuristic city is a Wall-E type oasis, complete with robot slaves, floating above a Wall-E type destroyed Earth surface. Tenma's son, Toby, is a real smart-alec know-it-all who sneaks into his dad's secret lab, full of new government weapons, and gets himself killed within the first 15 minutes. This, of course fills Tenma with regret, since we was always too busy for Toby: a real "cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon" situation.

Dr. Tenma only hangs out with his son in hologram form.

Tenma, stricken with grief, uses a newly discovered, powerfully "good" blue core of a star to power a Toby-lookalike robot. Although this robot Toby has meat Toby's memories (how?), it isn't as nerdy as meat Toby and Tenma kicks him/it out of the house. Meanwhile, the President wants to use the star cores to jumpstart a war that will win him the election, and he chases robot Toby off Metro City to the surface, where he becomes "Astro" and masquerades as a real boy. Astro robot meets a gang of Oliver Twist-esque kids on the surface. There is an epic battle, miraculous ending, etc.

This is not his son sleeping. It is a robot. His son is dead.

In the end this story is about good v. evil and equal treatment and respect for all self-aware and intelligent beings (robots or otherwise). This is all fine and all, but I can't get over the fact that they gloss right over the fact that Dr. Tenma's son, who seemed like a great kid, was laser blasted into dust without warning. It was almost a footnote, a preface. They did not delve into the fact that Dr. Tenma is facing a very real delusion leaving him very compromised. He builds Astro, but keep in mind that he hastily made a self-aware robot with the emotional intelligence of a grade-schooler, yet gave it laser cannons, machine guns,  rocket feet, and put a star's core (whatever that means) inside it. What if this robot threw a tantrum and shot up the town, lasered some grandmas, and detonated himself?

Real life Nicolas Cage is the best father.

In conclusion, this animated film was cute enough and fun enough, and Nicolas Cage delivered an excellent voice over performance. The writing left something to be desired. They missed a big opportunity to explain death and the 5 stages of grief to the 4 year olds in the audience. Instead the lesson is, don't worry about death, your dad will rebuild you as a robot with rocket boots.

Movie quotability:

• "It's called adaptive technology: it can absorb and control anything."
• "It's going to make him perfect, PERFECT!"
• "I like his boots" -Henry
• "I'm Mike the fridge. I'm the...fridge"
• "It's official. Henry loves Nicolas Cage movies." -James
• "Zog's awesome. I want a Zog!" -Skyler
• "What? I got machine guns... in my butt?" 
• "If you want the core, you're going to have to kill me."
• "He has to put it deep within the boy's Ass...tro." -James
• "IT'S NOT TIME FOR CHANGE" -President Stone's campaign banner
• "We're trying to live more naturally. You know, like real birds." -Robot spray and squeegee
• "A squeezee bottle's gotta do what a squeezee bottle's gotta do."
• "Love will be able to charge his battery!" -Skyler

Plot Holes:

• A "small fragment of a star" was collected. False. The whole planet is a "small fragment of a star." Stars are just atoms.
• Robot scientist uploads Toby's' memories into a robot Toby. How? From the one hair that he found?
• 4th dimensional calculus is just called "calculus"
• Astro Boy flies through the earth and solid rock but he doesn't melt from friction.

	CAGEamatic	Cinematic
Skyler	Poor	Exceeds Expectations
Shauna
James	2.00/5	3.33/5
Martine	!Stayed in the Cage!

#51 The Ant Bully

#51 The Ant Bully

Year: 2006

Director: John A. Davis

MPAA Rating: PG

Epic Co-stars: Bruce Campbell, Paul Giamatti

Running Time: 88 minutes
Cage Time: 30%
Cage Kills: 0
Cage Flip-outs: 1

Skyler's Review: 

In the Ant Bully, Nic Cage plays a sarcastic ant sorcerer named Zoc. That is trying desperately to brew a potion of Reduce Person. You see, there is a kid out there that likes to mess with the ants' nice little civilization, usually in the form of squirt gun. The ants call the kid, "Peanut the Destroyer." Zoc wants to give the potion to the kid so that he will be easy to kill.

Zoc, a wizard ant who wishes to use his magic to go the greater good for the colony.

The Julia Roberts ant says "No! We can rehabilitate!" They let Peanut try to join the community, but his attitude is terrible. Not surprisingly, the kid learns the way of the ants and they grow to respect each other. Danger happens, then they overcome it together. In the end, Zoc makes an Enlarge Person potion to return Peanut to his family with a new found respect for insects.

Nicolas Cage has been known to play a wizard role

The plot is so trivial, that we had guessed the plot completely before the title credits were through. Also, the humans in this movie were super uncanny. All in all, the movie made us laugh in parts, and Nicolas Cage as a wizard ant shows that his talent knows no bounds.

Movie quotability:

• "Away, monster, or I will use my powers to destroy you... powers that I have yet to perfect."
• "It's Peanut, the Destroyer!"
• "No, wait! We are not mindless savages! We should study the human... and then eat him!"
• Nic: "Curse you, rock! A curse upon your children!" JR: "I don't think rocks have children." Nic: "Well, they won't NOW." 
• "Oh, something HAHAHA, I was worried it was NOTHING!"
• "Will you quit eating, fatso?! It's crowded in here! We need more room!"
• "Zok! How did you get in here?" "Well, I sure didn't get in through the REAR entrance."
• "Uh, definitely NOT, thank you." (you have to imagine Nic Cage saying that)
• "Calling a human a friend... I always thought that was impossible until I met you."

Plot Holes:

• Most of this movie was iron clad, but at the end they really blow it. Why go to all the trouble of shrinking the exterminator when they could just un-shrink the kid?

	CAGEamatic	Cinematic
Skyler	Exceeds Expectations	Acceptable
Shauna
James	3.02/5	2.50/5
Martine	!Stayed in the Cage!

#49 Christmas Carol: The Movie

#49 Christmas Carol: The Movie

Year: 2001

Director: Jimmy T. Murakami
MPAA Rating: PG

Epic Co-stars: Kate Winslet

Running Time: 77 mins
Cage Time: 4%
Cage Kills: 0
Cage Flip-outs: 0

Skyler's Review: 

Someone spent $10 million on this animated movie. It must be some sort of money laundering thing because it is terrible. The movie starts off and you think to yourself, "This is one of those animated movies from the 80s". The animation is surely pre-Beauty and the Beast. I mean, look at it. The frame rate is low, the animation is drawn, not rendered.

This is one frame of Nicolas Cage as a ghost. You've almost seen the whole scene now.

Then you look to see the year that this movie came out and see "2001". What! Then you start to think, "Was animation still that bad in 2001?" No. Other movies that came out that year: Shrek, Monsters Inc., Harry Potter 1, and Lord of the Rings 1.

Why was this movie made? It's not as good as Muppet Christmas Carol, to be sure. Did this movie come before the Muppets? No, the Muppets actually preceded this disaster by 9 years.

The movie isn't even a "as true to the story as possible" thing. There are mice EVERYWHERE. Are they all going to die of the plague? I don't remember this in the book. In fact, the story is barely recognizable at all. Except for that guy named "Scrooge" and the title of the movie.

Nicolas Cage is excellent as always.

Movie quotability:

• "Ooooohhhhh [loud chain sounds]."

Plot Holes:

• The fact that this movie was even made.  Do we really need yet another animated rendition of this movie?  Never mind one that is presented in such a lame, cliched style?

	CAGEamatic	Cinematic
Skyler	Dreadful	Troll
Shauna
James	0.15/5	0.04/5
Martine	!Bonded with Shauna in the Cage!