Appendix of Cage 2024 - 2025: Two Years of Nicolas Cage Movies

A few years back, I published a book called Age of Cage: Four Decades of Hollywood Through One Singular Career. (Obligatory reminder: It’s still available. Makes a great gift, too!) Since I watched every Nicolas Cage film while writing the book (yes, even Pay the Ghost, Vengeance: A Love Story, 211, and other Redbox-era releases), I decided to end the book with a section I called the “Cageography,” containing capsule reviews of all of Cage’s films.

But why stop just because I finished the book? I’ve kept up with Cage’s career in the years since Age of Cage’s release, so I decided to keep the Cageography going in this space. I published the first Appendix of Cage in 2023, which gave me plenty about which to write. Cage only released two movies in 2022, including the metafiction comedy The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, but appeared in five movies in 2023 (six if you count The Flash).

Cage has slowed down a little since then, but he’s remained prolific and unpredictable. This second installment of the Cageography supplement covers the years 2024 and 2025 (with a bonus throwback to a non-movie project from 2023). Look for the next installment, which will include Madden and Spider-Noir, in a year or two, depending on how busy Cage is. (Note: These films are rated on the one- to four-star scale I used for Age of Cage, not the five-star scale we use at The Reveal.)

Arcadian (2024) ***
The world isn’t what it used to be in the near-future of this horror-thriller written by Cage’s longtime manager/producing partner Michael Nixon. A global pandemic has laid waste to civilization and, if that wasn’t bad enough, humanity also has to deal with deadly creatures that fear daylight but wreak havoc by night. Cage stars as Paul, a single father attempting to raise two boys (played by Jaeden Martell and Maxwell Jenkins) on an isolated farm. Survival means keeping to almost impossibly strict anti-monster protocols, a situation that has, understandably made Paul a bit of a worrywart. A pretty good monster movie/family drama somewhat in the mold of A Quiet Place, Arcadian has the feel of a personal project of Nixon (a single father) and Cage (no stranger to fatherhood himself). Benjamin Brewer, an effects artist who also helmed The Trust (one of the best films of Cage’s rocky ‘10s) provides solid direction, though the action finale’s a bit by-the-book.

Longlegs (2024) ***1/2
Osgood Perkins’ satanic twist on Silence of the Lambs has plenty of bad vibes even when Nicolas Cage isn’t on screen as the eponymous serial killer (a.k.a. Dale Ferdinand Kobble). When the almost-unrecognizable Cage shows up, they go off the scale. Here’s the thing about this performance: Even if you haven’t, say, written a book about Nicolas Cage, you undoubtedly have a sense of who Cage is on screen. And, yes, he’s gone to the edge with his performances many times. Some of Cage’s most successful performances have found him blurring the lines between gravity and comedy. His work in, say, Vampire’s Kiss is funny but also kind of terrifying once it becomes clear his character has slipped the bonds of sanity and begun causing actual harm. Though bizarre, there’s nothing funny about Cage’s work in Longlegs, in which he plays a pale-faced, longhaired, squeaky-faced weirdo who torments Lee Harker (Maika Monroe), an FBI Agent with whom he has a personal connection. Put simply, Cage is by far the most unsettling element in a film that’s pretty much all unsettling elements.