Nick Cage’s career has been in high-profile shambles for a while. The one time Academy Award-winning actor went from box office behemoth to sopped Hollywood punchline faster than you can leave Las Vegas. Even SNL has piled on, lampooning the actor in brilliant fashion.
After a few straight-to-video releases, Cage is starring in USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage, a historical film that pays tribute to the sailors involved in the horrific sinking of the ship during World War II. Nobody expected the movie to be a high-budget affair, and production was plagued by appropriately disastrous events, but now we have a long preview to watch in judgement.
What do we see? The production looks sparse, the CGI approaching video-game quality, and Cage seems to be holding back some of his lesser actorly impulses. Overall, it doesn’t look that horrible—I think.
Then again, the trailer is embroidered with saccharine phrases—”Ground breaking, emotional, riveting, gripping, intense, epic, historic, stunning, brilliant and powerful”—with no attribution.
Not a good sign.
I feel compelled to say that I am excited to watch the film even if it’s terrible—Cage’s overheated acting itself can be an entertaining trainwreck. But this is an important and amazing story, to this day the worst naval disaster in American history. So not doing it right and giving it the treatment it deserves is probably worse than not doing it at all.
Will it suck? I don’t know, but check it out for yourself.
