Nicolas Cage’s best comedy is blowing up Netflix’s top charts

In 2022, Nicolas Cage starred as Nicolas Cage in “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” a delightful comedy outing that saw the veteran star emerge as what /Film’s Jacob Hall described as “often nuanced, generally restrained and painfully, awkwardly human.” It’s quite a feat for Cage, who has been known for anything but reticence for the past few decades. Even when he starred in the most terrifying horror movie of 2024, “Longlegs”, he played the mysterious and creepy serial killer with excessive enjoyment. I went into the theater wondering if we were going to see some kind of uncharacteristic restraint on Cage’s part, but after he started scream-singing five minutes into the movie, I thought, “No!” Not to say his performance was bad, but if you saw him in David Gordon Green’s 2013 effort “Joe,” you might also be hoping for more of the quiet, older Nic Cage and less of the gonzo performances, he has become known for.

“The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” certainly gives Cage room to go off the rails in an attempt to reclaim some ownership of his ever-meme facial expressions and line deliveries. But his performance in the film clearly had enough nuance to make the film more than more off-the-wall Cage nonsense.

Co-written and directed by Tom Gormican, “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” sees Cage play a fictionalized version of himself whose acting career is on the rocks. The divorced actor reluctantly accepts a $1 million offer to perform at superfan Javi Gutiérrez’s (Pedro Pascal) birthday party, only to end up on an odyssey working for the CIA to try to uncover the truth about Gutiérrez and his alleged arms trade/kidnapping of a politician’s daughter. Cage embraces his movie character personas to get the job done, providing full meta-commentary on the actor’s own life and career, which also happens to be one of the best comedies of the past few years. Now the film has hit Netflix and viewers seem to have embraced its meta stylings, sending the film up the charts just a day after its debut.

By the end of its theatrical run, “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” had managed to pull in 29 million dollars worldwide with a budget of 30 million dollars. So it wasn’t exactly a great financial success, but the critics were at least satisfied. The film currently enjoys a critic rating of 87% Rotten tomatoesbased on 318 reviews. That makes it one of Nic Cage’s highest-rated films of the last five years (and as you’d expect, he’s been in a lot of them over that time). Even “Longlegs” isn’t as highly rated as Tom Gormican’s action comedy.

As such, it’s nice to see a critical success doing well on the Netflix charts, which are so often filled with some of the worst streaming slag in the entire streaming sphere. (Kevin Hart’s “Lift” was number one on Netflix this time last year…)

“The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” hit Netflix on January 16, 2025 and proved to be an instant hit. At the time of writing, the film is number four on the US’s most watched film charts. According to FlixPatrola site that aggregates viewing data from all the major streaming platforms, the film debuted in fourth place on January 17, just one day after it hit the service. It bodes well for Nic Cage’s comedy to reach the top of the charts, perhaps before the week is out.

At the time of writing, a French action thriller is number one on Netflix. The Rodolphe Lauga-directed “Ad Vitam” is essentially a French version of “Taken,” which, given the fact that Liam Neeson has been making his own “Taken” rip-offs ever since starring in the original, Seems like fair play to me. Unfortunately for Nic Cage and his action comedy, “Ad Vitam” has been number one in the US for a full six days. Not only that, but viewers around the world have also sent it to the top of the charts in various other countries, making this challenge for “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” to overcome.

But considering the film debuted at number four just a day after it hit the service, it might be what finally topples Lauga’s actioner. To achieve such a feat, Cage and co. will also have to overcome a perhaps even stronger enemy in the form of Minions. “Despicable Me” and “Despicable Me 2” currently occupy the second and third spots, respectively, on Netflix’s US charts, and they’ve been there for some time, too. If “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” can jump these two juggernauts, then it will be another victory for one of Cage’s best modern efforts. What’s more, it’ll be a nice little reminder that Netflix can earn more than formulaic actioners and movies that would otherwise have been forgotten direct-to-DVD duds — like when Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi epic “Interstellar” soared on the Netflix charts to kick off the new year.