Posts Tagged ‘nicolas cage’

Last time Nicolas Cage and director Simon West joined forces, the absurdly entertaining Con-Air was the result. Oh, times have changed. Fifteen years later, the action genre has evolved, Nicolas Cage’s career has devolved and their collaboration is being released to limited theaters – a troubling trend for the once popular actor.

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Way back in 2007, I watched a movie called Ghost Rider. And way back in 2007, I wrote a movie review that said it is “one of the worst movies I have seen in a long time.” And way back in 2007, I lamented, “Are we going to suffer a sequel?” After earning $237 million worldwide, Marvel said “yes”, which means that Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance exists. In the movie, people pay for their sins, and the audience pays as well. We’re the reason a sequel exists. We deserve to watch this wretched movie a thousand times over.

Read FilmJabber’s full Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance movie review.

Nicolas Cage’s latest project to embody the “anytime, anywhere” motto of his career, Season of the Witch comes to DVD and Blu-Ray on June 28, promising loads of medieval dumbery. No offense to Ron Perlman, but you know what’s in store when he’s the leading costar.

Read FilmJabber’s full Season of the Witch movie review.

“Why couldn’t you put the bunny back in the box?”

It’s one of the more poorly delivered lines in an otherwise enjoyable film. Devoid of emotion, uttered with all the enthusiasm of a character that is more than half asleep, that bit of dialogue typified the overall performance of the lead character in the 1997 action flick.

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For those of you who missed Nicolas Cage in Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans – and that’s most of you – you really missed it. Luckily, there’s this thing called home video – now in the form of DVD and Blu-Ray – that allows you to watch really good movies that you didn’t see in theaters.

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Just in time for the sequel, National Treasure is returning to the new DVD shelf with National Treasure: 2-Disc Collector’s Edition, which comes with a fair amount of special features – though probably not enough to warrant two discs.

First off, loyal readers of mine know that I was never a big fan of the original National Treasure movie; the film seemed bloated and never all that exciting, despite being a non-stop adventure story. Having watched the movie just this last weekend for a second time, I’ll admit I enjoyed it a bit more than before – things seemed a little more fast paced and a lot less boring than I remember. Still, National Treasure isn’t deserving of a sequel. Nicholas Cage is rather bland as the hero, and the whole plot is still a bit too ludicrous to fathom (how does a treasure hunter manage to steal the Declaration of Independence?). For a family adventure film it’s okay, but none of the adventures or clues really manage to exude much mystery, suspense or excitement. The ending is also rather disappointing, just as I remember it. You can read my original National Treasure movie review here.

As for the National Treasure DVD, the 2-Disc Collector’s Edition offers a mix of old and new features. Returning features are an array of deleted and extended scenes (including an alternate ending and opening sequence), none of which are particularly great, and a few featurettes that include “On Location”, “The Knights Templar”, “Treasure Hunters Revealed” and “Riley’s Decode This!”.

New features include a few more deleted scenes (interestingly, the deleted scenes are split among the two discs), which again aren’t very spectacular, and some new featurettes:

• Ciphers, Codes & Codebreakers
  This one examines the use of codes in the movie and the history of code, including ancient codes from Roman times to World War II Enigmas and eventually to modern-day, computer-encrypted codes. Sort of interesting, though nothing particularly in depth.
• On the Set of American History
  This one talks about how National Treasure was so special because it got to film a bunch of scenes at real locations. While I guess it’s sort of impressive that they were able to make a movie in certain spots, I wouldn’t say there’s anything too groundbreaking here. Having just watched The Bourne Ultimatum DVD, which shows the filmmakers shooting amongst crowds at real train stations, this one pales in comparison.
• To Steal a National Treasure
  This featurette looks at how the filmmakers decided to hire someone who would have the expertise to recommend how they would actually steal the Declaration of Independence. Not nearly as interesting as one would imagine.
• Exploding Charlotte
  This one is about blowing up the ship at the beginning of the movie. Too bad most of this footage is found in another featurette, and that there really isn’t much insight into the pyrotechnics, etc.

This 2-Disc DVD set isn’t all that bad at all, but National Treasure isn’t anything spectacular, and there isn’t enough here to warrant fans of the movie to buy another version of the DVD. Still, if you’ve been meaning to purchase National Treasure ahead of its sequel, National Treasure: Book of Secrets (which looks terrible, by the way), now’s the time to buy.

Here’s the new National Treasure: Book of Secrets movie trailer, starring Nicolas Cage. I really didn’t like the first movie (I found it long, boring and tedious), and this one looks just so ridiculous I doubt I will enjoy it. Still, this new movie trailer is a vast improvement over the original preview, which was full of camp and stupidity. The marketing department still reveals way too many of the twists (I would be much more intrigued to see the movie if they didn’t reveal that Cage plans to kidnap the President of the United States, which right there takes the film far off the believability scale), but until they hire me…