I’m not sure what to make of Mandy, the new plug for Nic
Cage to do Nic Cage stuff. Critics seemed to really like it—its Tomatometer
rating is sitting at a cool 92%, with an audience score of only 67%. I never
really trust those scores anyway, because sometimes you’re just the fish
swimming in the opposite direction of everyone else, right? Still, it’s worth
pondering over what the difference between the two scores mean and what might
audiences have missed that critics seemed to enjoy so much about this film. I’m
in the 67% crowd since I thought that there were a fair number of things that
were fun about the film, while wanting perhaps something a bit more clever out
of the script.
The premise for Mandy is basically a set up to let Nicholas
Cage do his thing. Red (Cage) and the titular Mandy (Andrea Riseborough) are
shacked up together somewhere in the wilderness, living a peaceful, hippie-ish
lifestyle when a cult leader and his gang abduct the couple and try to force
Mandy into sexual servitude. When she balks at the cult leader, he decides to
gruesomely kill her in front of Red and leaves Red crucified to die alone. Of
course, Red is no stranger to armed combat and goes seeking vengeance on the
cult.
To say that the second part of the movie is a trip belies
the tone the director sets out from the beginning. The world is full of odd
creatures and is filmed as if you’re watching the story on LSD, with strange
camera angles, lingering shots, and a subdued color palette full of mauve and red mixed with darker tones. It’s got a grainy feeling to it, as if it’s supposed
to be an 80s horror movie yet comes off as something else closer to 80s home
video. Altogether, it’s a weird experience that gets weirder as the violence
ramps up and Cage goes full Cage.
And boy, does Cage go full Cage. It’s as if the movie
switches tone to a dark comedy as he goes fully insane once he escapes his demise
and decides to wreak havoc on the cult members. There are some great moments
where he gives his most Cage-like faces as he knocks off each member, one by
one. I was most looking forward to these Cageriffic moments, though I ended up
leaving the theater oddly disappointed. It’s not that he wasn’t great…I mean,
he’s Nic Cage! Doing insane things! It was fun. It’s just there wasn’t enough
of it in there for me to really enjoy. It takes so long for him to become
insane Cage that I sat around getting a little bored at the impressionistic
filmmaking style of Panos Cosmatos. I mean, it’s not like he’s filming an
award-winning movie over here; just get to the good stuff and make it clever
while you’re at it! By the time Cage goes full Cage, it’s fun, but he’s made to
be too invincible for his own good, leaving little suspense or any crafty
scenarios for Cage to one-up himself. He’s just crazy Cage the rest of the way,
killing everyone in his path (SPOILER), without any real sense of danger or
whimsy. I was utterly disappointed by a chainsaw battle scene, and no one
should EVER be disappointed by a chainsaw fight scene featuring Nic Cage. It
should just never happen.
So, I ask the director after watching a movie that felt so
mellow yet featured insane Nic Cage: what? What were you going for here? Was
the aesthetic of washed-out colors contrasted with Nic Cage-driven insanity
meant to amplify his psychoses? Or was it all just meant as a trip to make Cage
a dream-like model of crazy? Whatever it was, it was just okay. I’m sure the
critics thought it was a hoot, because how many actively watch bad Nic Cage
movies to know the difference? Real audiences were less supportive, and I think
that’s because most people watch Nic Cage, not for the high-mindedness of the
movie, but for how silly and dumb he can be. If you’re going to use him, you
might as well use him the whole way, no matter how unpredictable or stupid
things might get.
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