The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent stars Nicholas Cage as himself in this meta action/comedy. Along for the ride are Pedro Pascal as Javi Gutierrez, Tiffany Haddish as a CIA agent Vivian, Ike Barinholtz as Vivians colleague Martin, Sharon Horgan as Cage’s Ex wife Olivia Henson, Lilly Sheen as Cage’s daughter Addy, Neil Patrick Harris plays Richard Fink, Nicholase’s agent, & Paco Leon as Javis cousin. Nicholas Cage is looking for his next big role, while struggling to pay some outstanding financial debts and balance his personal life with his daughter. Cage is presented an opputunity to make some quick cash by going to buisness man Javi Gutierrees house in Spain and attend a party there. While at Javis house Cage begins forming a friendhip with the buisnessman who also shows Cage how huge a fan of his work he is. After a night by himself at a bar (and with a re-occuring voice in his head), Cage is grabbed by two CIA agents Vivian and Martin, where they tell Cage that Javi is a notrious criminal who is holding captive a girl named Maria who is the daughter of a poltician looking to crack down on crime. The two agents enlist Cage to continue befriending Javi and try to find out where Maria is being held. The rest of the film follws Cage going down an andventure of re-living his previous roles, (and creating a few new roles), attempts to clear his new friend Javi of what he has been accused while also trying to amend the issues his acting career has created between him and those he loves.

This movie was thorougly enjoyable to watch due to the chemistry between Nicholas Cage and Pedro Pascall . Pedro really comes across as a loving ,dedicated, awkward fan of his newly acquainted friend. Pedro has been on a hit streak for a while now with his work on the series, Narcos, The Mandalorian on Disney plus, and now TUWOMT. One hilarious sequence in the film occurs whenr Cage agress to co-write and star in a script with Javi, they then venture into a nearby town to come up with ideas for the movie, but take acid before doing so. Cage recieves a text from Vivian asking if he has made any progress on the case and he responds “not yet, I am on acid right now” and Vivian responds promptly “WTF”. Javi and Cage become paranoid while in town and try to run away from what they beleive are two spys watching them. While on the run they come across a wall blocking their path and dont see that there is a clear path around the wall.The two try to jump over the wall, and Cage is unsucesful trying to pull Javi over the wall. Javi tells Cage to leave him behind and get away. Cage hops over, and starts getting emotional, thnking he has left Javi behind for good. Javi walks around the corner and says “Mr Cage?”. In an earlier scene after Cage and Javi meet, the two have a discussion about their favirote movies and Javi admits to loving Paddington 2. Cage sort of brushes him off and doesnt take him serioulsy when he says how good the movie is, until we cut to them watching the movie together and being in tears.

Throughout the movie Cage has internal conversations with the super eccentric movie version of himself which produces some really entertaining moments. Once scene that sticks in my mind, is when after the first night of meeting Javi, Cage retreats to a nearby bar for drinks and begins having a conversation with his alter ego. The two begin having an argument about what their goals are as one person in which movie Cage in response slaps the real Cage. After the slap, the two begin making out with each other. Cage has some signature CAGE moments in this, but for the most time it felt he was being pretty down to earth and authentic throughout the move, showing the struggle of a man trying to figure out if he should continue acting and focus on his family or say F it and keep being Cage. It makes sense this situation playing out in Cage’s head because of the actual high volume of films that Cage has appeared in over the years and for the longest time seemed like he sacrificed quality over Quantity. Not saying that Cage hasn’t been good in several movies over the laast two decades but their are defenitley duds (a lot of which were straight to DVD). A few hollywood meta moments are sprinkled thoughout the movie, such as one scene where Cage and Vivian are talking about the case and, Cage begins explaining him and Javis plan to write and star in their own movie, which Vivian responds to Cage that the premise might not be good enough to bring in an audience because everyone is so used to big franchise movies like Marvel. Besides that, the only other meta moments are refernces to Cages filmagraphy, and the reoccuring appreciation of Padington 2 ( I have not seen 1 or 2 so I should get myself to stream them one day).

The film has a bit of a predicatble ending, as Cage is able to finally make his masterpiece based on the experince with Javi for the whole movie, and saving the relationship with his ex wife and daughter. We see the ending clip of the movie where Demi Moore plays Cages Wife. The ending scene is Cage sharing a moment with his daughter and ex-wife as they watch Paddington 2. We move the camera outside the house and on top of the roof overlooking the city and get to a yell from a fmailliar voice saying “IM FRICKING CAAAGGGGGGEEEEEEE”. Besides the predictable ending, I had a great time with TUWOMT. B+ from me.