15 of Nicolas Cage’s Craziest Performances by Intensity
The new Nicolas Cage movie comes out this week, and it’s the biggest theatrical release of a Cage movie since pre-Covid times. In “The Unbearable Weight of Enormous Talent,” the actor plays…Nicolas Cage, with a bit of a meta-style shenanigans. Early reviews were pretty good, which is a good thing because it sounds like Cage’s signature performance. I mean, damn wild.
Over the past few years, Cage has experienced something of a career and reputation renaissance. It’s not that he ever disappeared as a sought-after actor, but films like The Color from Space , Mandy , and Prisoners of Ghostland (along with a more over-the-top performance in Pig ) positioned him as the older statesman of ultra-high acting. . We’ve seen Cage go crazy onscreen for decades, to more and less effect, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that in the right film, his unconventional, fearless, and downright shameless acting choices can come close to transcendence. Where other performers value restraint or care about looking cool (or just not getting upset), Cage isn’t afraid to go big , favoring a style that borders on the opera. Or completely coked. When it’s required, there’s no live actor to do it better, and he’s given some groundbreaking (and award-winning) performances. When is it not required, or when is the film he is in unable to maintain that level of theatricality? Well… it’s still wildly entertaining, often serving as the only watchable part of a bad movie. Whether the films surrounding them are great, bad, or mediocre, these are some of Cage’s wildest performances as measured by Nicolas Cage’s intensity scale .