The Trust (2016) - Review

The Trust is a 2016 heist film starring Elijah Wood and Nicolas Cage. They both play Las Vegas Metro Police, working with evidence collection and  that are honestly mediocre in everything that they do. After a lengthy investigation, Lt. Stone (Cage) is determined to find the cash source for a drug dealer who has been suspiciously let out on bail. He convinces his partner, Sgt. Dave Waters (Wood), to come along with him in his plans to rob a secret compartment in the back of a convenience store for a large payout. This heist will definitely change their careers, just not how they expect.

I found the experience of watching The Trust very enjoyable. The general incompetence or mundane nature of the job that Wood and Cage's characters are engaged sets the tone for what will happen later in the movie. Even in the planning stage of their heist, things do not go as planned and as smooth as they had hoped, leaving them to either go into the job not as prepared as they hope and forcing them to take risks that they had not foreseen. Neither men are masterminds that have every angle thought out, they are regular people who have gotten in over their heads, which is a delightful turn of the genre. The tension rises dramatically over the course of the movie as the viewer watches Dave come to grips that he is far in above his head and that there is no turning back from what he and Jim do. I recommend this movie not as an example of high cinema, but as a movie that acknowledges that heists are messy and not as polished and sexy as an Ocean's Eleven or Fast and Furious. It manages your time well as the viewer and never wears out its welcome; giving you more and more until even the final scene of the movie. Focusing more on the economy of movie that you will encounter, there isn't much fluff. It is a tight experience that respects you all throughout. This is a title that is worth watching if you are intimidated by the deluge of low-quality movies that Cage has attached himself over the years. 

G-Force (2009) - Review

G-Force boasts a star-studded crew of Zach Galifianakis, Will Arnett, Bill Nighy alongside the voice acting of Sam Rockwell, Penelope Cruz, Nicolas Cage, Tracy Morgan, and Jon Favreau. The movie centers around a secret squad of animal special agent hopefuls raised and trained with FBI resources. After a failed attempt at gathering evidence from Nighy's Leonard Saber, a former weapons dealer turned legitimate home appliance businessman, the crew of 3 guinea pigs and one mole (Rockwell, Cruz, Morgan, and Cage respectively) must regroup and determine the best course of action to take Saber and his criminal partner Mr. Yanshu from taking over the world with the chips in all Saber home appliances. 

This movie is a very complex movie for children. I was constantly astonished at the technical aspects of the movie that don't lend well to children following the plot. As a movie for adults, however, it doesn't break past its attempts of appealing to children. The themes of family and trust are strong, as well as a fairly complicated love triangle plotline that would go over a child's head. I was very intrigued as to what the studio process might have been as I watched more and more of the movie, and I can't puzzle it out; the best that I can do at the present moment is determine that Disney had started production on the movie, filmed the live-action scenes requiring the main cast of actors being present, and spent most of their time in voice acting and computer animation. Having spent so much money in the process, they had to ship the project in order to fill some sort of theater dominance. But that is all speculation, and can enjoy the polished sound mixing and computer animation that Disney can offer. While there are moments that shine bright in the movie, but cannot provide much more to anyone else but children beside cute animals being voiced by veteran actors. I have seen this movie years prior, and had remembered various beats of the film, but my opinion of the movie stands: G-Force is very mediocre, and no amount of polish can save it from that state.

Dying of the Light (2014) - Review

Dying of the Light is a 2014 espionage film starring Nicolas Cage and Anton Yelchin. Cage plays a veteran CIA intelligence analyst, Evan Lake, who is diagnosed with a form of dementia that promises that his career has neared its end. Lake is determined to stay on as an agent because of his belief that a terrorist that the Agency has since declared killed in action is still alive somewhere in the world. An office friend, Milton (Yelchin), is tipped off on information that the terrorist may still be at large and assists Evan in tracking him down so that this chapter of Evan's life can be closed before it is too late. 

The movie tackles some intense themes, as Evan Lake is a "hoo-rah", patriotic CIA agent determined to finish the job that he was reassigned off of years later. His dementia diagnosis and Agency pride feature heavily throughout the film as many characters express their concern for his health and general competence to do his job. It was sad to see Anton Yelchin in this movie, as his death in 2016 cut his promising career short. His performance walking the line between wanting the best for his friend while risking his career is very touching throughout the runtime. It is a shame to see such talented individuals give their hearts to something that is very incredibly boring. I found myself looking away from the screen all throughout the movie despite my dedication to give it a fair shot. The only redeeming parts of the movie are the aforementioned performances; everything falls flat on its face as being very uninspired. There's not much more to say about the movie as there really isn't much substance to it. I understand that there was controversy surrounding the movie before its release due to the director unable to make edits to the movie without studio interference, so I can only chalk this up to this very unfortunate incident marring what could have been a very humanizing story. But we may never know, so I have to just pass judgement on the product we did receive.

Gone in 60 Seconds (2000) - Review

Gone in 60 Seconds is a year 2000 heist movie featuring Nicolas Cage, Christopher Eccleston, Robert Duval, and Angelina Jolie. Cage plays Raymond "Memphis" Raines, a retired and reformed car thief who is thrust back into his former life after his younger brother Kip runs afoul of Eccleston's British gangster Raymond Calitri. Memphis must steal 50 cars in 72 hours in order to save not only his brother's life, but his own as well. Memphis and his crew, put together by Robert Duval's mentor character, and including Angelina Jolie, must do this job while evading a Long Beach, CA grand theft auto unit that is intent on stopping Memphis and his crew.

There is something nostalgic about Gone in 60 Seconds. Watching this movie transported me to a childhood that I have long since forgotten. Whether it intended to or not, the movie captured the late 90s, early 2000s aesthetic like a time capsule. The frosted tips, the genre, the look, the feel - this movie has it all. And this is to the movie's benefit. Well, maybe besides the frosted tips. As I am not particularly a car enthusiast, the allure of the cars didn't really do anything for me - but the way that the characters interacted with and spoke about the cars was very convincing and made me care about not only the plot but the characters as well. In some sense, it does the Fast and Furious family loyalty story better than the more popular franchise, a film that would have been in development during the same time frame. The cat and mouse game that the detectives play with Memphis's crew is quite enjoyable - the movie very rarely has the two groups intersect and it seems that the police are always just one step behind determining the true intent of the group until the climax. Overall, I would say that the movie is very polished. There are some points in the film, particularly how the climax is resolved, that seem very contrived, but fail to diminish the way the tension is built and portrayed in the movie. 

My Review Process

I didn't have a blog scheduled to run in August, so I wanted to slow my reviewing of movies down a tad this week to give myself time to think of something. I had initially thought of posting one review a week, save for the extra posts for when my wife wanted to watch something out of sequence on my list of "to-do" for this project or for when a movie comes out in theaters and I am able to to catch it in the midst of my busy-ish schedule. But the hope of one per week was dashed against the rocks when I realized that despite two titles I want to review at certain times, I would be reviewing movies for over two years. I like doing this project, don't get me wrong, but there are certain things that I would enjoy doing even one year into the future that this project would get in the way of: the start of my new career, potentially parenthood, among other things not even thought of quite yet.

I started this project during a month-long break from school earlier this summer, and I was watching movies at a fairly fast clip. I wouldn't even put words into a document until I had about three reviews waiting to be written. Oh, but never more than three. I never have even considered uploading information about four or more movies into my head and not reviewing them for this blog. Watch-Watch-Watch-Write 2 reviews -Watch-Watch-Write 3 reviews-Watch-Write 1 review, etc. The process is fairly inconsistent in that manner, but it helps me contextualize Nic Cage's movies with each other, even if they have no other connection (year, quality, etc.) than the actor himself. I also try to give a fairly short synopsis of the movie in question, followed by one or two sections that make up the subjective portion of the review. This helps me get the reader up to speed on the jist of the movie if they haven't seen it, explain what potentially drew me to this movie before, my feelings about it, and if those feelings have changed over time. I don't think I'll ever get to the level of professionalism of a Siskel and Ebert, as that is not where my passion in life lies, but I do want to produce a product that people can relate to themselves and maybe trust me to give them some decent movie recommendations. I even produce reviews, if I am so inclined, from movie recommendations from friends. 

I am writing this blog on July 14th, posting this Aug. 3rd, but I have scheduled reviews out until Oct. 31st at this point to make sure I can accomplish this task in a manner that satisfies my stated goal of doing this as quickly as possible. Just as I am zooming through my courses at school to become an authority on my studied subject, I aim to be some sort of authority on Nicolas Cage's filmography. I used to be self-conscious of my older brother making jabs at me for allowing myself to watch low quality movies so easily, but that doesn't matter to me as much anymore. I appreciate the wisdom that he was trying to teach me: not wasting my time with movies that have no meaning or bearing on how I view the world or that are hardly enjoyable. But I feel as though my niche has always been giving the lesser known and lesser quality a shot, knowing that I will rarely find the diamond still caked with dirt, but a diamond nonetheless.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010)

The Sorcerer's Apprentice is a 2010 live-action fantasy film starring Nicolas Cage, Jay Baruchel, Alfred Molina, and Monica Bellucci. Balthazar Blake (Cage) has been tasked by Merlin to find a worthy successor to his magic, a person who is the only one able to be powerful enough to vanquish his enemy Morgan le Fay, after Horvath (Molina) breaks away from Merlin and joins forces with le Fay. The two evil sorcerers end up killing Merlin, but find themselves trapped in a magical containment device with the third apprentice, Veronica (Belluci), for 1300 years. In the current day, Balthazar finds Merlin's successor in Dave (Baruchel), a physics-oriented university student who wants nothing to do with Balthazar after a brief interaction with Balthazar led to a childhood of ridicule. Horvath has escaped his imprisonment and is bent on reviving his old master to destroy the world - Balthazar and Dave must team up so that Dave can become Merlin's true successor.

That plot synopsis is a lot, and it was a lot to take in and place on top of the knowledge of the many adaptations of Goethe's Der Zauberlehrling that have made their way into modern popular culture, the more ubiquitous of which are Disney's adaptations as animated shorts in Fantasia and Fantasia 2000. To make this a feature length film, the writers had the task of connecting centuries of magical lore together to make some semblance of connective tissue around the expectation of recreating the animated short in a non-offensive way. There is a tension between Dave chasing after love and Balthazar trying to teach him as much magic as quickly as he can before Morgana is released, and another tension of Dave's studies into science and being thrust into a magical world - of both, the characters realize that there is no true dichotomy between the two choices and that a third choice exists. The combined efforts of Cage and Alfred Molina make the criticisms of the tenuous plot almost moot as the energy the two bring to their roles as mortal foes is spectacular, both of these seasoned actors really chew on the scenery in a positive way. Baruchel slotting into the awkward, apprehensive hero role. The special effects for the movie are extremely polished, something that I would not expect less from Disney. I couldn't find much to criticize on this movie, except maybe that the story is a bit too involved and complicated for its intended audience. I wouldn't mind adding this movie to a list of movies that I would actively rewatch, a list that isn't necessarily that long as I get older and more particular with my time.