The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
Lionsgate | Release Date: April 22, 2022 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
68
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 52 Critic Reviews
Positive:
40
Mixed:
11
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Film ThreatBobby LePireApr 23, 2022
The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent offers something for hardcore Cage fans, cinephiles, or anyone looking for something refreshing and unique. It’s original, funny, dramatic, and action-packed without the tonal whiplash one might expect from such an ambitious narrative. Read full review
91
IndieWireJude DryMar 13, 2022
Though movie references and Cage quotes abound, there’s something for everyone in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. It’s one of the funniest movies of the year. Read full review
88
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiApr 22, 2022
It might sound like a gimmick, but it’s as good as any action-comedy you’re likely to see. Cage heightens his already big personality just the right amount to ensure that the film rises above a skit. We care a great deal about fictional Nicolas Cage. Read full review
88
ObserverEmily ZemlerApr 22, 2022
A free-wheeling ride through the best of the actor’s filmography. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comMarya E. GatesMar 13, 2022
Filled with easter eggs for fans of any facet of Cage's career, the filmmakers don’t place a judgment on which of his films have the most value, understanding that a favorite film is intimate and personal, and that what matters is that it does resonate on some level. Read full review
83
Original-CinJim SlotekApr 20, 2022
The movie is both an exercise in self-mockery and a spoof of both Hollywood and the kind of movie Cage might take to pay the bills. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubLuke Y. ThompsonApr 12, 2022
If the movie were just meme-able moments, it might run out of steam, even with Cage delivering them practically nonstop. Thankfully, there’s an actual plot, which allows everyone else (and the film as a whole) to spoof less Cage-specific tropes. Read full review
83
The PlaylistRobert DanielsMar 13, 2022
In Gormican’s uproarious The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Cage delivers a crowd-pleasing triumph that reminds audiences that he’s always been — no matter the part, no matter the reviews — a star who makes the movies infinitely better just by being him. Read full review
80
ABC NewsPeter TraversApr 22, 2022
Nicolas Cage plays Nicolas Cage in this whacked-out meta-comedy that doesn’t always hang together as a movie but cements its gonzo star as the eighth wonder of the world when it comes to highwire acting without a net. Read full review
80
IGNAlex NavarroApr 21, 2022
The real heart and soul of the picture is Cage’s on-screen bromance with Pedro Pascal’s Javi. Their chemistry carries the movie into far more memorable territory, and more than makes up for a few of the film’s less-interesting elements. Read full review
80
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyApr 21, 2022
What really caught me off guard about The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is its sweetness. Read full review
80
EmpireDan JolinApr 20, 2022
A big, silly, scrappy bundle of fun, packed with Cage-related Easter eggs and in-jokes, but also a whole lotta heart. Read full review
80
We Got This CoveredScott CampbellApr 19, 2022
Nicolas Cage brilliantly embraces, mocks, and subverts his own legacy in an ingeniously demented action comedy that celebrates one of Hollywood's most uniquely fascinating stars. Read full review
80
Screen DailyTim GriersonApr 15, 2022
A satire of Hollywood ego, a loving tribute to Cage’s hair-trigger intensity and a consistently funny bromance, Massive Talent doesn’t overstay its welcome or ever get too pleased with its premise, finding humour and sweetness in the notion that sometimes even Nicolas Cage can’t live up to being Nicolas Cage. Read full review
80
Time OutHelen O'HaraApr 13, 2022
It's cheerfully nonsensical, of course, shot in a sun-drenched luxury compound straight from the big book of action movie clichés, yet lacking the flourishes of a John Woo or a Michael Bay. Read full review
80
VarietyOwen GleibermanMar 13, 2022
It’s a commercial comedy that has a delirious good time poking fun at Nicolas Cage, celebrating everything that makes him Nicolas Cage — and, in the end, actually becoming a Nicolas Cage movie, which turns out to be both a cheesy thing and a special thing. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerApr 20, 2022
This is Cage trying to find himself in all those messy decisions he’s made, trying to make amends while accepting and celebrating who he is. Read full review
78
Paste MagazineAurora AmidonMar 14, 2022
If you’re a Cage superfan, then you’re guaranteed to revel in the bounty of references to his filmography. But even if you’re not (though you will become one after this movie), this is an emotional, engaging, funny, riveting film. Read full review
75
The AtlanticShirley LiJun 13, 2022
Nicolas Cage, even after all the memes and all the ridicule, still knows exactly what to do with the weight of his unique intensity, including when to dial it back. Read full review
75
Vanity FairRichard LawsonApr 29, 2022
Perhaps a new day of Cage has dawned. One in which he can get back to the business of acting, unburdened by all the constant, semi-loving demand that he just bug out his eyes and dance. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleApr 22, 2022
As a Nicolas Cage movie — not just as a movie, but as a vehicle for what a specific actor can do onscreen — this is the most interesting thing Cage has done since “Face/Off.” Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattApr 21, 2022
Cage, so great and unexpectedly subdued in last year's small-scale indie drama Pig, has a ball with his own myth-making, a star contracting and expanding in the movie's fun-house mirror of fame and destabilized celebrity. Not that he ever went anywhere. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesScott GreenstoneApr 21, 2022
The movie is less interesting than the career of Nicolas Cage, but it’s very funny at moments, and Cage and Pascal have great chemistry. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayApr 20, 2022
If this all sounds too insufferable and in-jokey, fear not: Gormican, with the help of his fabulously game ensemble cast, keeps the balloon afloat with a light touch, crisp pacing and an overarching mood that’s more goofily endearing than smugly self-amused. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperApr 20, 2022
It’s worth the journey due to the sheer star power of Cage’s performance, his willingness to commit to this Funhouse Mirror silliness, and a half-dozen moments that are comedic gold and yet somehow absurdly touching. Read full review
75
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenApr 20, 2022
The movie’s best moments are those of cinebro-bonding between Pascal and Cage’s characters. Read full review
75
PolygonRafael MotamayorMar 17, 2022
The film works like gangbusters, and it’s a terrific vehicle for Cage, but not for the reasons people might expect. Read full review
75
SlashfilmJacob HallMar 13, 2022
This is a hard film to dislike. Cage brings what you'd expect, Pascal brings even more, and their awkward, adorable, genuine kinship represents how so many of us feel about Cage these days. Read full review
70
SlateDana StevensApr 27, 2022
For me the biggest disappointment of The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent—a likeable if lightweight comedy that’s more than worth seeing for Cage’s and Pascal’s touching bromance and its Nick-confronts-Nicky fantasy sequences—was that it didn’t go even further with its central doppelgänger conceit. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriApr 24, 2022
In its broad strokes, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is a fairly by-the-numbers action comedy, one that sometimes wears Cage’s presence like a talisman against the bad juju of slipshod storytelling. But the talisman works because the film never loses sight of its touchingly nutty premise and because Cage remains a compelling actor. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeApr 23, 2022
Though not solely for superfans, it plays best for those who appreciate a hard-to-untangle knot of realness, fakeness, vanity, artistry, self-commentary and pure comedy. Laced with truly hilarious moments, it’s less daring than one might hope given its conceit, Eggersian title and Charlie Kaufman-seasoned icon-star. Read full review
70
Screen RantMae AbdulbakiApr 22, 2022
It's good to have the actor, whose diverse filmography is certainly a memorable one, back in an exciting, eccentric big studio film. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla DargisApr 21, 2022
The director Tom Gormican, who wrote the script with Kevin Etten, gets the job done, churning the nonsense. There are no surprises other than the movie is watchable and amusing, though it’s too bad Gormican didn’t let Cage and Pascal just go with the absurdist, shambolic flow. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzApr 20, 2022
There’s nothing particularly surprising in the plot, once you get past the meta-Cage business. Pretty soon it’s just an action movie. What is surprising is how enjoyable Cage and Pascal make the movie anyway. Read full review
67
ConsequenceClint WorthingtonApr 20, 2022
The fundamental disconnect behind Massive Talent, besides its deliberately shaky tonal shifts, is that it feels like a career corrective for a man whose career shouldn’t need one. Read full review
67
ColliderRoss BonaimeApr 8, 2022
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent—even when it doesn’t entirely work—shows the dedication and greatness of Cage, the impressive breadth of his career, and proves that Cage is, indeed, back. Not that he went anywhere. Read full review
67
The Film StageJohn FinkMar 14, 2022
Like Cage, it’s a curious creation, one that never quite matches the ambitions of the man of the hour, but does allow him to poke fun at himself and treat fans to something cathartically silly. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliApr 26, 2022
It’s a painless diversion – no more, no less – that gets an injection of energy from the lead actor’s willingness to not take himself too seriously. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreApr 20, 2022
It’s funny enough so long as Cage and Pascal are bromancing their way towards that big pay off/stand-off, the one you’ve seen in all the trailers because, let’s face it, it sells “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.” Read full review
63
Slant MagazineMark HansonApr 14, 2022
Despite this clever setup, Tom Gormican’s film isn’t the self-reflexive skewering of Hollywood that one might expect. Read full review
60
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeApr 24, 2022
The screenplay is so meta that at times it is practically consuming itself, an ouroboros of in-jokes. But there’s an affable appeal to the picture that disarms the more self-satisfied tendencies of the writing, and which stems from the chemistry between Cage and Pascal. Come for the industry satire, stay for the endearingly goofy buddy movie. Read full review
60
Little White LiesHannah StrongApr 21, 2022
It’s an easy watch – even a mostly enjoyable one, thanks to the great time Cage and Pascal are clearly having – but the dialogue stumbles into cheesy territory more often than not, and overall it feels like a missed opportunity to make a bolder statement about the ruthlessness of the Hollywood machine, or indeed Cage’s enduring celebrity. Read full review
60
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeApr 21, 2022
If anything, The Unbearable Weight is not quite tricksy enough. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesKatie WalshApr 20, 2022
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent knows that what it has going for it is Nicolas Cage, and Nicolas Cage is what makes this otherwise forgettable comedy worth the watch. It’s not necessarily only for super fans, but super fans will be richly rewarded by this love letter to Cage, who, remember, never went away. Read full review
60
TimeStephanie ZacharekApr 19, 2022
Unfortunately, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, a meta-comedy of ostensibly epic proportions, is not nearly grand enough to embrace those multitudes. Read full review
60
TheWrapMartin TsaiMar 13, 2022
"Massive Talent” goes full fan service–y, tapping into the cult of personality shrouding its lead actor. But the actual finished product feels too inside-baseball; it takes a true Cage aficionado to be in on all the jokes. Read full review
54
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzApr 18, 2022
A cheap, crass and ruthlessly sloppy skewering of celebrity culture that is barely a millimetre above the material it thinks it is so sharply satirizing, Gormican’s new film is the definition of disappointment. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsApr 20, 2022
I suspect the Cage fans who will enjoy this movie won’t care if it’s fundamentally sloppy and lazy moviemaking. The star of the show is neither. Read full review
50
Rolling StoneDavid FearApr 20, 2022
You wish the movie wasn’t content to be a feature-length meme and truly deserved what Cage is doing with this long, hard look in the fun-house mirror. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is not unbearable by any means. It just should have been so much better. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyApr 20, 2022
Nicolas Cage has had one of the stranger careers in Hollywood history. Considering Hollywood history, that’s saying something. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, with its splendidly winking title, trades on that strangeness. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawApr 21, 2022
There are some entertaining meta-touches here, but the entire Gutierrez plot is strained and borderline dull. Pascal isn’t a natural comic and the movie winds up fudging his crucial bad-guy status. Read full review
20
The TelegraphTim RobeyApr 22, 2022
With the filmmakers almost palpably high-fiving between these takes, it’s no surprise they wind up with a star performance that has to count as one of this star’s most strenuous. Treated as this zoo exhibit, he isn’t unleashed to express himself creatively. He’s caged. Read full review
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