For folk's sake...

I feel like I’m going through a bit of a renaissance period; not with powdered wigs or harpsichord music; somebody is bound to tell me neither of those things happened during the actual renaissance but that’s OK because I opted out of history at school figuring there was a fairly low percentage chance of me repeating it. The fact that I remember next to nothing about Geography other than some girls taking the piss out of me because I used the term ‘inclement weather conditions’ is just details. No, my renaissance is much less academic and much more of my mind boggling at how old and in some cases desperate my old favourite action heroes have become. Arnie, Bruce Willis, Van Damme; all creeping slowly towards the inevitable final credits crawl with differing levels of grace. At least Wesley Snipes had the good sense to disappear into a mire of tax evasion law suits that kept him from destroying his legacy too much. This week though, Nicholas Cage comes back into the limelight all googly-eyed and screeching and reminding us that nobody does mental like he does.

It is well worth remembering Nic Cage is (or was) actually a half decent actor when he isn’t channeling his inner crack-head. Leaving Las Vegas got him an Oscar, for what they’re worth and Adaptation got him a nomination so he’s got chops at least. Let’s be honest though, he’s as famous for being a meme as anything nowadays, even if I remember him best as for the bug-eyed lunatic Castor Troy in Face/Off and most people if pushed will put on an awful Texan drawl and ask you why you haven’t put the bunny back in the box. Con Air by the way is awesome, anyone who tells you otherwise is a Russian bot. He’s never been afraid of sticking his name on a host of action B-movie fodder though; on the contrary, he embraces it, draws it fondly into his arms and then stabs it in the neck with a home-made prison shiv fashioned from a toothbrush.

Mis-steps like Ghost Rider (why have they not crossed that over with Punisher on Netflix yet? Can you imagine the carnage?) and The Wicker Man remake which was awful in so many ways (not that I thought much of the original, but horses for courses, no?) can be forgiven by chestnuts like The Rock or even Lord of War. His next movie, Mandy looks absolutely bat-shit insane in the best way possible and there’s no feasible way it could possibly be anything other than vintage Cage. He’s got that much on his slate before then though including the recently released Mom and Dad. The trailer for this looked joyous and literally tailor-made for Cage. Who wouldn’t want to see him flip between doting Dad and murderous psychopath as parents across the US suddenly decide to off their own offspring? Truth is, the film has its moments but is ultimately let down by its ending.

You can see where the concept for this came from; what parent doesn’t want to throttle one of their own children with a school tie now and again? I speak from second hand experience of course as nobody is dumb enough to want tiny versions of me running around; there’s only room for one smart arse around here. I hope you weren’t expecting more in terms of plot; that’s your lot. There isn’t much more to it than being a glorified and homicidal game of Hide and Seek; it delivers those sections with great aplomb and Cage is happiest gobbling up huge chunks of scenery every time the camera lingers on him for more than a second. It falls down hard when it tries to deal with the more emotionally charged moments of family relations because it feels very much like it’s tacked on to try and pad things out for what essentially would be a great 15 minute internet short but even at under 90 minutes you’re pushing things. Oddly though, there’s so much you could explore but they don’t. Other than the whole thing probably being caused by signals in TV static, the script doesn’t concern itself with the who, what or why, only that this is happening so deal with it. There are some nice little moments; the parents lining up outside the school waiting for the kids, the expectant Fathers clamouring at the new born ward window but it’s kind of the same gag over and over again punctuated by moderate threat and some violence. It’s mostly after the fact though, all grisly baseball bats and blood-smeared t-shirts rather than the flying viscera you might be expecting.

There is a little sting in the tail, when Cage and Selma Blair suddenly remember just after they tried to gas their own youngsters trapped in the basement that their parents are coming over any moment and the cat and mouse game extends everything for another 10 minutes or so, but doesn’t do much more than that. Nice to see Lance Henrikssen is still knocking about though, not bad for a human. Aside from some glossy retro opening credits and despite how resplendent the whole thing is in its own craziness, in the end it feels like it needed something more. Much more actually, like an entire extra subplot more. Man cannot live on Nicholas Cage being unhinged alone, and as gratifying as it is to hear that screech (which is more of a catch phrase than Arnie’s “I’ll be back” at this point) there was too much missing from this for it to be a classic. The ending is super abrupt; the kids appear to have triumphed momentarily and it’s set up like the beginning of the last act but then it just stops in its tracks mid-sentence and cuts to credits. You put an extra 15 minutes of plot in here (and I mean actual plot not just “all the parents are trying to kill their kids”) and you have a winner. I can’t say I hated it, but it was the cinematic equivalent of driving a tank to a Coldplay gig; fun ride, unrewarding outcome.