Nicolas Cage – a great actor or just lucky?
Nicolas Cage is not the kind of actor you expect to make top ten lists, unless those top ten lists are “top ten worst actors of all time,” or “top ten worst hair styles sported by any actor ever, literally ever.” He has built a reputation, fairly or unfairly, on appearing in bad movies, moving between two signature styles of incredibly dry, or overacting so incredible that it transcends overacting and comes right back around to just plain terrible.
Buried within Cage’s back catalogue of relentlessly bad movies, there are good movies. I promise you, from the bottom of my heart, there are. Nicolas Cage is not as bad an actor as you think. In fact, he may be one of the most underrated of his generation.
A glance at Nicolas Cage’s repertoire shows just how many critically acclaimed movies he has starred in: he worked with the legendary Cohen Brothers in their cult comedy Raising Arizona, won an Oscar for his performance in Leaving Las Vegas and did a stellar job playing Big Daddy in Matthew Vaughn’s adaptation of Mark Millar’s ultra-violent comic book Kick-Ass.
Cage’s role in the 2003 meta-comedy Adaptation, where he plays Charlie Kaufman and his twin brother, Donald, is considered by many critics to have been his best. A lesser actor could quite easily have left the audience confused during any of the many scenes where Cage is present as both men, but he plays to his strengths in each role: Charlie is a neurotic, lacking in self-confidence, whereas Donald is carefree and childish. They are two clear, distinct characters, played effortlessly by Cage, who shows the depth and skill of his acting ability with confidence and ease.
The late, great film critic Roger Ebert said in his review of Adaptation that Cage should be included in lists of the greatest living male actors, alongside the likes of Robert De Niro and Jack Nicholson; he said that Cage “is committed to the character with every atom and plays him as if he were him.” Yes, Nicolas Cage may have a slight problem saying “no” to scripts, but it would be decidedly unfair to say that Cage gives nothing but 100% in every single movie he stars in.
Ghost Rider might be a categorically bad movie – I won’t argue with you on that point – but it most certainly isn’t a terrible movie; it is a movie born of Cage’s love of comic books, and watching him chew the scenery while living out a childhood dream of playing the badass Ghost Rider is simply brilliant fun.
Nicolas Cage is a great actor. Once again, Ebert said it best in his review of Drive Angry: “Cage is a good actor in good movies, and an almost indispensable actor in bad ones.” He throws himself into every role, and while the the movies themselves may be less than perfect, his performance every time is nothing short of stellar, and if we all looked at him like Ebert did, no-one would scoff at placing him alongside De Niro and Nicholson as one of Hollywood’s greatest actors.
Katie Campbell
Auxiliary Magazine 