The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent: Entertaining But Not Deep

Nicolas Cage has become a bit of a genre independent of the movie he is starring in. With a robust filmography that boasts over 100 appearances spanning 40 years, his status as a bona fide movie star is something that cannot be questioned. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (referred to as “Massive Talent” in television spots and in even the AMC app) pokes fun at this legacy, although the deeper story could be more interesting than the one displayed in this movie.

Oddly enough this film brought to mind the story mode for Madden NFL 18 called Longshot. In this mode, the player would take on a high school into collegiate football player with aspirations of making it into the NFL. The story starts out with the player’s struggles with that until he is given the opportunity to be on a reality show where the winner gets a chance to be drafted into the NFL. The reason this came to mind is that there are two conflicting narratives in Longshot, both of which would work stand alone, but when squeezed together into a narrative chimaera both stories end up short-changed and not working properly.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent similarly has two conflicting stories that work against each other. There is the age-old story of the aging movie star who has to confront his legacy and mortality to come to terms with the fact that he was not who he used to be, and then there is the buddy comedy story about him taking the job to go to a wealthy man’s birthday party and the related hijinks that ensue. Either of these stories would work well for a feature length movie (the former probably would have made for a more interesting movie starring a man playing himself) but when mixed into an a-plot/b-plot format, neither story comes out as fleshed out as it should be.

The other major misstep the movie makes is poking fun at itself in a meta way as if that then excludes itself from the criticism that is inevitably going to come. At one point in the movie Nicholas Cage is talking to one of his CIA handlers (played by Tiffany Haddish) which leads to a discussion about taking a character driven drama and adding in a plot about a kidnapping to make it more marketable. In a movie like this, the conversation just seems like a moment of self-awareness that is transparent in its purpose. The ultimate irony of this being that this movie would probably be better received as a streaming movie on Netflix or Amazon Prime than it is as a theatrical release.

If someone likes Nicholas Cage, specifically the image of Cage that has been spawned from the internet and social media, they will definitely find enjoyment in this movie. Conversely, those who do not like Cage will have a hard time getting into the movie. If one is going to see this movie they should attempt to go in without seeing any commercials or trailers if possible because the marketing materials do spoil two major moments in the movie that would play funnier if they were not marketed to death at this point.

Final Rating: 7/10