--- title: 'The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent' Is an Enormous Waste of Nicolas Cage's Talent description: The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, a meta-comedy of ostensibly epic proportions, stars Nicolas Cage as Nick Cage. canonical: https://time.com/6168276/the-unbearable-weight-of-massive-talent-review/ author: Stephanie Zacharek article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2022-04-19T15:56:32.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T14:08:27.367Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: 'The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent' Is an Enormous Waste of Nicolas Cage's Talent og:description: The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, a meta-comedy of ostensibly epic proportions, stars Nicolas Cage as Nick Cage. og:url: https://time.com/6168276/the-unbearable-weight-of-massive-talent-review/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc6387d1bb5ddae19/698a30ffb3fce368900c92b0/nicolascagemassivetalent.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: nicolascagemassivetalent og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 'The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent' Is an Enormous Waste of Nicolas Cage's Talent twitter:description: The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, a meta-comedy of ostensibly epic proportions, stars Nicolas Cage as Nick Cage. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc6387d1bb5ddae19/698a30ffb3fce368900c92b0/nicolascagemassivetalent.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # _The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent_ Is an Enormous Waste of Nicolas Cage's Talent  by [Stephanie Zacharek](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Apr 19, 2022 3:56 PM UTC  Nicolas Cage in 'The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.' Nicolas Cage in 'The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.'Katalin Vermes/Lionsgate  by [Stephanie Zacharek](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Apr 19, 2022 3:56 PM UTC To love [Nicolas Cage](https://time.com/4937801/nicolas-cage-over-the-top-acting/) doesn’t make you an underrepresented minority. For decades, his face on a movie poster was the key to worldwide ticket sales, though he’s more than just a global star. He has been called the finest actor of his generation, which is probably true. In his off years, he’s been jeered at as a guy who’d take any role to finance the purchase of a castle, or perhaps a choice dinosaur skull. Does he contradict himself? Very well then, he contradicts himself. He is large. He contains multitudes. Unfortunately, _The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,_ a meta-comedy of ostensibly epic proportions, is not nearly grand enough to embrace those multitudes. Cage stars as Nick Cage, a fictional version of himself who spouts lofty ideas about acting but who’s finding it harder and harder to land gigs. He’s also having family troubles: his teenage daughter (Lily Sheen) resents him, and his impending divorce from his smart and justifiably annoyed makeup-artist wife Olivia (Sharon Horgan) has left him broke. Fortunately, his agent ([Neil Patrick Harris](http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1984685%5F1984940%5F1985537,00.html)) has a job for him: Spanish billionaire and superfan Javi (Pedro Pascal) will pay Nick to attend the birthday party Javi’s throwing in Mallorca. Incidentally, Javi has also written a screenplay—because someone has _always_ written a screenplay. [**_Read more reviews by Stephanie Zacharek_**](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/) Nick shows up on the island, hoping to do his bit and be gone in 60 seconds. But he and Javi end up forging a warm, manly bond, over LSD and a shared love for, well, Nick Cage. Their bro time is foiled by a duo of CIA agents (Tiffany Haddish and Ike Barinholtz) who believe Javi is behind a high-profile kidnapping. Meanwhile, another version of Nick Cage—a much younger, _Wild at Heart_–era gonzo id with unpleasantly pearlescent CGI-de-aged skin—pops up repeatedly to remind the older Nick that he’s not a serious actor but a superstar, and he needs to start behaving like one. _The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,_ directed by Tom Gormican, who also co-wrote the script with Kevin Etten, name-checks one Nicolas Cage film after another, weaving in memorable quotes along the way. Is _Face/Off_ your personal favorite? Represented! Are you one of those Cage completists with a fondness for _Guarding Tess_? Gormican’s got you! Clearly, the audience is supposed to hoot and holler every time they recognize a Cage reference, which will be often. This is less a movie for actual watching than one for making noise. But poke beneath the aggressive fun of _The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,_ and you’ll find a depressing act of redemption that doesn’t really need to happen. The media has recently made much of how Nicolas Cage is back, after a too-long period of making not-so-hot movies for a paycheck. (Last year he gave a terrific fine-grained, hard-nosed performance in [Michael Sarnoski’s small-budget ](https://time.com/6080780/pig-movie-review/)[_Pig_](https://time.com/6080780/pig-movie-review/)_._) We already know that [Cage](https://newsfeed.time.com/2014/01/06/50-nicolas-cage-facts-for-the-50th-birthday-of-this-national-treasure/)—with those soulful-rabbit eyes, that voice like olivine velvet—can do just about anything. And so his willingness to join in this not particularly daring act of self-mockery should surprise no one. This is absolutely a movie For the Fans, maybe because nobody knows _who_ to make movies for anymore. But instead of leading us to a place beyond ourselves, it only confirms our ability to identify things that gave us pleasure in the past. It’s the dinosaur skull we want, and buy, leaving greater needs unmet. 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