Well THERE’S a tonally disparate double-feature — a comedic action riff on a beloved actor’s eccentric public persona followed by a meticulously researched and exceedingly UN-comedic riff on the story underlying one of the most famous tragic plays of all time.
Nicolas Cage IS Nicolas Cage in Tom Gormican’s story of a beloved, slightly too-intense movie star who, with jobs drying up and cash short on hand, agrees to take a million-dollar job attending wealthy fan Javi (a charmingly agreeable Pedro Pascal)’s birthday party on his private island. Ah, but there’s a catch — right as Cage starts to take a shine to his overeager wealthy fanboy, the CIA grab him and tell him that Javi’s fortune was made in arms dealing, and that he’s holding a tough-on-crime politician’s teenage daughter somewhere in his compound, and our movie star protagonist is going to have to help them out. The entire film hinges on Cage’s performance as the guy we all kinda think he is thanks to rumors on movie news sites and in magazines as well as his appearances in a few too many of those direct-to-DVD flicks you’d see at Walmart, and bless him he is entertainingly game for anything — the movie’s Cage is a pretentious self-absorbed film snob who’s completely out of touch with his family, ruins a birthday party with a drunken anecdote that starts sweet but turns into a self-absorbed career rant, and keeps talking to an imaginary amped-up, de-aged version of himself in his peak floppy-haired movie-star years who he makes out with in a bar. That said, it also wouldn’t work without Pascal’s warm, sincere and starstruck presence; what you’re paying for when you buy the ticket are the well-played meta-jokes about Cage’s persona and career AND the wonderful chemsitry he has playing off of Pascal’s cheerful and energetic Javi. The plot does have some clever beats to it, and the rest of the cast are solid players — alas, they just don’t get a lot to do beyond either A. delivering exposition (poor, poor Tiffany Haddish as the CIA point person; she does elevate the role, but it’s pretty thankless), B. rolling their eyes at Cage’s antics (Sharon Horgan and Lily Sheen as his long-suffering ex-wife and daughter do a LOT of very justified eye-rolling), or C. being a generic villain so this thing can have a third act that justifies the “action” in “action-comedy.” It’s a fun flick; I thought the ending was a little underwhelming, but I enjoyed the ride.
Whereas I think I enjoyed THE NORTHMAN’s ending more than a lot of the ride. Robert Eggers’s heavily-researched historical Viking revenge drama is based on the same urtext as Shakespeare’s Hamlet — young prince Ameth (Oscar Novak) bears witness to the murder of his father Aurvandill (Ethan Hawke) at the hands of his uncle Fjolnir (Claes Bang). He escapes the same fate, fleeing by boat, and grows to manhood, now embodied by the muscular and perma-hunched Alexander Skarsgard; following an encounter with a seeress (Bjork), he leaves his life of stone-faced violent berserker-dom to finally exact his promised revenge. I do admire the formal tics of the filmmaking — the mannered shot compositions, the use of monochromatic color grading for mood and emphasis, the stylized way Eggers presents the more fantastical moments of rituals and visions — but I did find myself drifting off throughout the middle of the film as he lingered on this, that, or the other aspect of Viking life for maybe a few beats too long. It’s a handsome film, and well-acted — Willem Dafoe gets one great scene to chew all the scenery as the Fool of Aurvandill’s court, but it’s a good one; Nicole Kidman is Amleth’s mother, who of course marries the uncle and doesn’t seem too put out by the new arrangement, and she is given QUITE a turn to play. And the ever-unearthly Anya Taylor-Joy reunites with Eggers to play Olga, Ameth’s partner in crime as he plots to rain on his uncle’s parade until such day as he can fulfill the prophecy — to strike him down at the Gates of Hel. Taylor-Joy’s always interesting to watch, even when, as she is here, she’s put into the “threatened love interest” box — but she does also get to save Ameth’s well-toned bacon a couple of times, too. The underlying tale is one of the futility and tragedy of the cycle of vengeance and violence, and I think this telling goes hard on just how devastating it is; I do like that about it. There’s nuance to the character dynamics that I wasn’t expecting that makes the climax all the sadder. Much like EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE … I think this will probably stand a bit taller on rewatch, though I wonder if some of the less narratively-driven Viking custom and ritual will drag even harder on the second go-round. Glad I saw it, but not sure how strongly I can recommend.