Guys, I have to make a terrible confession. Have you wondered all these years why Nicolas Cage has a film career? It’s me, people, it’s all me. I’m the sole moviegoer keeping Cage in business. It’s sad to admit, but my name is Caitlin and I’m addicted to bad Nicolas Cage action flicks. (Right now, Fletch over at Blog Cabins is probably booking a plane ticket to come beat me senseless.)
John Travolta plays Sean Archer, a determined, hardworking FBI agent determined to bring down the vicious criminal that killed his son, a certain Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage). After finally bringing him down, the FBI discovers that there’s still one last dastardly plot Castor has dreamed up that he’s already set in motion and there’s only one ridiculously outlandish way to save the day. Sean Archer must have his face switched with Castor Troy. Insult to injury, I should think, but of course! Sean Archer is a total Boy Scout, so he has to do the right thing — at the further expense of everything he holds dear and true. What a hero, right?
There’s really no other way to describe this movie than absurdly over the top. Castor’s brother is named Pollux (haha, get it?); Nicolas Cage starts out the movie by planting some sort of crazy bomb in a convention center dressed as a priest of all things and carrying gold plated guns; the prison in this movie is something you have to see to believe. It’s a quasi-futuristic place with robotic, magnetic boots that control the prison population that’s located on an oil rig looking place in the middle of the ocean. So…yeah. It looks like a fun place to spend an eternity and a half, right? Kinda bleak, kinda depressing, kinda isolated. It’s party city up there.
Meanwhile, while Sean’s taken Castor’s place in prison to get information out of the neurotic, nerdy Pollux, the real Castor wakes up without a face, which would probably really ruin anyone’s day. Pissing off the psycho nutjob and taking his face? Not a good idea. So Castor goes…a little nutso and takes Sean Archer’s face, leading to a nice little switcheroo that screws everyone up. Well, not until after he gets a new face lasered on and kills everyone remotely involved with the face-transplanting.
There’s a reason Nic Cage excels at playing neurotic and/or insane, psychotic characters. I personally speculate that Mr. Cage might be a little cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, if you catch my drift, but I could be wrong. So when you throw old NIcolas a curveball — say, playing a straightlaced, normal guy that’s out of his league — he doesn’t know what else to do with it than ridiculously, shamefully overplay it. Here? He doesn’t disappoint.
The scene where Archer wakes up with Castor’s face is nearly priceless. You’d better not be drinking anything while watching it or whatever liquid you’re imbibing is going straight up your nose. Cage has a completely unbelievable freak-out attack that’s beyond description, complete with stupid facial mugging, some of the most forced, fake crying I’ve ever heard, and ridiculous cries of “Eff you, eff you!” thrown at his superiors as he breaks a mirror. It’s like angst overload, Nicolas Cage style which basically means Cage plays it like a thirteen year old girl would play it. Academy Award winner right there, folks.
Cage quite simply can’t play it straight to save his life. When you’re making John Travolta, king of the unintentionally comic overacting, look downright Oscar-worthy, it’s pretty bad. Travolta does play a rather despicable bad guy. I love watching Travolta play bad dudes because he hams it up just enough instead of taking the Cage route, which is kind of like watching a monkey on speed chase a banana for hours on end.
The rest of the film is devoted to the two taking bizarre, strange means to get their respective faces back, culminating in a final battle of good versus evil with the trademark John Woo hallmarks splashed in.
So…after having gone through all the bad, why do I like this movie so darn much?
To tell you the truth, I’m really not quite sure. Perhaps it’s the scene where Nicolas Cage dances around as a priest and sings with a kid’s choir after planting a bomb that will destroy Los Angeles; perhaps it’s just the general feeling of “it’s so bad it becomes awesome” that pervades the movie; perhaps it’s the random Joe Bob Briggs cameo (Aww, Joe Bob! I miss Monstervision on TNT!).
Even if it wasn’t intended to be what it is, Face/Off’s a cheesy action flick that for some odd reason, never gets old. It stays awesomely bad and is just as funny the first time as the last time you see it.
After years of having seen it, even Nicolas Cage’s vamping doesn’t get old — and that’s saying something.
Hmmmm…never seen it. But what’s this I hear about Travolta and Cage overacting?! Never!
Yeah, those two in a movie together really ups the Ham Factor, for sure.
andrew, are you kidding me? You’ve never seen Face/Off? You MUST! It’s that bad!
At least you admit right off the bat that you’re addicted to “bad” Nic Cage flicks. They certainly are that. ;)
To be honest, Face/Off works excellently as a comedy, along the lines of a Roadhouse. It’s just that, when you have Academy Award nominated (and winning!) actors overacting in a movie that’s really not supposed to be funny, well, that’s just sad.
The bigger problem is that Cage SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN AN ACTION HERO. Who in their right mind ever thought to cast him as one in the first place?
I liked him back in the 80s (and very early 90s) when he was an actor. I’ll defend Red Rock West and Raising Arizona till the cows come home. And he’s made a handful of decent flicks since (Adaptation, Matchstick Men), but yeah, the action ones are the ones that kill me. Ghost Rider, Con Air, even the beloved Rock (I fight with a friend constantly over its merits or lack thereof).
Face/Off takes the cake, though. Really, I blame John Woo, that overrated hack, for it, though. The lame overused styles, the HORRIBLE stunt filming (they stand out like billboards whenever they’re onscreen), the doves. Ugh…what a piece of crap. And to think Joan Allen tarnished her name with this, too.
How’s that for a response?
(Oh, and I’m ashamed to admit this, but no, I don’t get it. What’s funny about Pollux?)
Fletch – I totally agree about Cage not being an action hero. Out of all of these, the one that gets me the most is Con Air. What in the hell were they thinking?
I’m not a huge John Woo fan, so I’m with you on that.
I like the Cage action movies for the reason you pointed out – the comedy factor of it all – and you probably summed all that up better than I could, including that lovely bit about Joan Allen. (Seriously, she had to be in a movie with Gina Gershon? No disrespect to Gina, but…damn.)
On the Pollux thing: Castor & Pollux are constellations named after twins from Greek mythology, if my 8th grade English class recollections serve me right. There’s also a weird angle in there about Sean Archer being a representation of Sagitarrius the Archer – found it via Wikipedia, though. The Castor & Pollux references, I remembered. I’m just a big dork. :p
I don’t feel so bad (though maybe I should)…I’m the worst person in the world when it comes to astronomy. I can barely find the north star. It’s not knowledge that I care about knowing.
Yea, the comedy factor is large. Heck, even I’ll watch The Wicker Man for the end. >:}
You shouldn’t feel badly about it! I know of one reason to watch The Wicker Man – LeeLee Sobieski gets kicked in the neck! Woo!
I’m not big on astronomy either, but I had a hardcore teacher into mythology and a lot of the constellations are named after Greek and Roman myths, so it just got stuck up there in my brain. :D
I am NO fan of the man, I really DO NOT like him nor do I think he is a good actor.
Having said that, he was fantastic in “Adaptation” and “Moonstruck.”
Oh, and “Leaving Las Vegas.”
Okay, maybe, he is not as bad as I thought.
{maybe your opinion was rubbing off on me for a while, but honestly – I still don’t like him much}
Dude, no one likes Nic Cage, Nick! I’ll put it this way: I like Hollywood Actor Nic Cage – the Nic Cage you see in the bad action movies. Real Life Nic Cage is kinda scuzzy and gross and frightening, really.
I think he’s a horrific actor with moments of great clarity – like you said, Moonstruck, Adaptation and Leaving Las Vegas – but those moments of clarity are way too rare. But for some reason, putting his name on the action movie box makes me have to rent/own it. It’s nice to just giggle at Nic Cage mugging at the camera for two hours and I don’t even know why.
(By the way, if you hate Cage, check out Lord of War. Good movie but he plays a pretty nasty character that you’ll love to hate.)
And no worries, Nick! I figured you were all tied up with school – hope all’s going well on that front.
We’d all swap places with Mr. Cage or Mr. Travolta in an instant :)
That being said, Face/Off may be the most ill-advised movie ever made. Everything about it is intentionally over-the-top (premise, acting, action, directing, etc.). Over-the-top only works in movies about WWE wresting or my favorite arm-wrestling flick of all time: Over The Top!
Over The Top is such an awesome movie! In that awesomely BAD way, of course.
Ill-advised is probably the best way to sum up Face-Off. John Woo’s career has been kinda ill-advised, huh?
As embarrassing as this is, I admit that my friends and I worshipped this movie when it first came out, in all ernst. We weren’t too bright at the tender age of 15. Thank God the times have changed…well at least for your’s truly.
Rachel, nothing to be ashamed of there! I have no shame, actually, so I feel very free confessing that I have seen Spice World tens – nay, hundreds – of times.
I actually like Face/Off. It’s over-the-top as only John Woo can do it, and for an action movie, it’s got a lot of heart.
Sup, just found your site on bing. You have a bunch of great posts!