Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-review by Professor Popinjay

Notice the slash? That’s to differentiate this film title from a 1971 hockey movie. That’s something you know now.

Ah the 90’s; when John Woo, Nicolas Cage, and John Travolta were allowed to do whatever they wanted on screen. Can’t do that anymore though! Might trigger someone and get demonetized!

This film was a showcase of acting talent: by which I mean, John Travolta’s amazing acting talent and Nicolas Cage’s ability to be Nicolas Cage. Honestly, were it not for John Travolta’s ability to act like Nicolas Cage, I would not have believed Nicolas Cage when he had to act like John Travolta trying to act like Nicolas Cage. That’s just how good John Travolta is at being Nicolas Cage!

When John Travolta became Nicolas Cage in the movie but Nicolas Cage had not yet become John Travolta, it was as if we had two Nicolas Cages walking around chewing on the scenery. But oh boy, once Nicolas Cage finally becomes John Travolta, it’s as if two Nicolas Cages are walking around chewing on the scenery, one of whom is John Travolta acting like Nicolas Cage and the other is actually Nicolas Cage trying his darndest not to act like Nicolas Cage. This of course comes with great difficulty to him as he happens to be, much to his disadvantage in this case, the actual Nicolas Cage.

It proves the old adage: “Always be yourself, unless you’re Nicolas Cage, in which case you clearly have no choice but to be Nicolas Cage.”

None of this is said to downplay Cage’s performance, whether he is being portrayed by Travolta or himself. Cage always puts in 1000% of himself into everything he does and we love him for it. It’s probably an unpopular opinion however that if we wanted an actor to be someone other than Nicolas Cage in this film, perhaps Nicolas Cage wasn’t the best choice for this role. I might suggest Jimmy Fallon, who does a great impression of Travolta.

That having been said, was this a good movie? I know many who would die on the hill of this is a good movie and I have no intention of crawling up there and pushing them. I remember being quite entertained by this film when I was younger but nowadays as a grumpy curmudgeon, there’s a couple of scenes I feel should have bothered me back in the day and definitely bother me now. I won’t go into detail but these scenes jerked me around emotionally in ways I don’t appreciate being jerked around.

On a completely unrelated note, I feel compelled to preface a seprate complaint: I watch a lot of Chinese movies. I’ve enjoyed most of them. I’m a huge fan of Sun Wukong fables and kung fu flicks in general. I also like a few John Woo films. Paycheck was excellent.

John Woo got his start making Chinese films in China for Chinese audiences and having watched and enjoyed many of these films, I’ve grown accustomed to a lot of cultural tropes that pop up. John Woo has a tendency to let some of these tropes carry over into his American films and they can be a bit funny at times when American actors are required to act within said tropes. The slow motion, the characters looking badass for a very long time, the smarmy melodrama, the doves, the doves, more doves, doves on the left, doves on the right, doves crammed in between, more slow motion, and while you’re at it, stick some more doves in there. Mission impossible 2 had such a large portion of the budget going to the dove wrangler, she should have had top billing above Tom Cruise.

Seriously, not since Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds or Batman Returns have there been more birds on set. And maybe this is just a John Woo trope but whenever the doves are on set flying around in slow-motion it just starts to feel inarguably like a Chinese made film. I just have to ask John Woo sometimes: Are we filming an action flick here or artsy slow mo dove porn. Yes, it’s cool and epic once in a while but let’s get on with it already!

Regardless, Nicolas Cage at his Guarding Tess level of Nicolas Caginess and John Woo at his Mission Impossible 2 level of doveiness is still better than most films devoid of Nicolas Cage or Doves and Face/Off lands somewhere in the middle. I might watch it again if someone had never seen it and really wanted me as a “watch this with me” buddy.