Oh, God. Oh, my God.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
You start in the mid-cut mid-sentence.
We did bits all before.
We did joke bits of how we're going to start this that were better
than what we're actually starting with.
Yeah. Oh, well.
Hi. Welcome to Cage Match.
Colon, a roundabout way of meeting Nicolas Cage.
I am your host, Sean, with my host Nick.
That's me. I'm Nick.
And our producer, Peter. Hello.
So a quick breakdown of what we're doing here is we've decided
by purely scientific metrics what the
top 64 Nicolas Cage films are.
And from there, we're going to break it down to.
What? The best.
Yeah. We're going to take it 64 to one.
And by the time we finish, we're really going to have
one hell of a Nicolas Cage film collection.
Yes. And we'll have watched all of them, half of them twice.
Yeah. Most of them.
A quarter of them three times.
So we're doing this until we go insane.
Yeah, it's a it's a pretty straightforward bracket.
We did it kind of a sweet 16 style.
I don't know. We recorded some of the conversation of it.
Who knows? Maybe someday somebody will listen to it.
That's for the patrons.
It was it was awful.
I wouldn't listen to it if I were you.
It's the highest quality recording.
Yeah, the recording was great.
The recording was fine.
Peter did a fantastic job, but it still included Sean and I.
Yeah, that's really the worst part of any endeavor. We.
Endeavor. Yeah.
I didn't think that sounds through.
No, that's cool. We got there.
So we're going to we're going to break it down.
We kind of did a like zones like character roles,
sort of like funny guys, action guys,
and we're going to pit them against each other.
Conference style.
I don't know. I don't know why I'm still talking.
Peter will probably put this bracket up online where you can see it
on the Internet. Oh, absolutely.
We have to figure out if cage match dot fun is available.
Hmm. Sounds like a good one.
I mean, we could probably find that out.
Hey, let's just start pitching it right now.
Cage match dot fun.
That's where you're going to find all of our like errata
and erotica.
In case we need it later, let's take some alternate takes at
cage match dot net cage match dot org
cage match dot gov.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure we can't get gov dot edu.
This is an educational show.
We can actually classify it as that with our podcast, too.
So that's perfect. Yeah.
So the first films we decided to pit against each other were
Face Off and Jujitsu from 2020.
These are both great movies for a lot of reasons.
Which one do we want to start with?
Should we should we go with the one everyone knows so we can surprise people
with the yeah, that's your beauty that is Jujitsu.
Why don't you tell me all about Face Off?
I hadn't seen this movie probably since high school.
Oh, it's like one of the Holy Trinity of cage movies.
It's I don't know.
I've probably seen it every at least every other year, I feel like
of my life since 1997.
So the long and short of it is John Travolta plays
an FBI agent, Sean Archer, Sean Archer,
who is doing his best Nicola Cage, Nicholas Cage impression
for the first 20 minutes of the film,
tracking down notorious domestic terrorist
Castor Troy, nailed it.
Amazing name who starts off this movie with an amazing mustache.
And I am sad that it's gone within five minutes.
Yeah, that mustache was real sweet.
It really actually kind of sold a lot of the lines he said.
He says later in the movie, but does not get to attach to the stash.
Re-watching this film, I realized that 99% of Nic Cage memes
I use come from this film.
Yeah, yeah, it's really got everything.
We got derailed off the plot, though.
Yes. So either way, the movie starts off with Castor Troy
drinking a milkshake while attempting to assassinate Sean Archer,
shooting Sean Archer, missing his heart, but killing his son.
It was real tragic. There was a lot of crying.
This is a John Woo film, so lots of doves and bad children in peril,
bad child actors in peril.
That's fair. We don't actually know if any of the children were, in fact, bad
when they were in peril.
It could have been perfectly fine children.
Hi. Which I argue do not exist.
I was going to say. So either way,
Castor Troy and his brother stick a bomb.
Stick a bomb. What's his brother's name?
In LA. Pop quiz.
I do not remember. Pollux. Pollux. That's right.
I just watched this movie this morning.
Pollux Troy, that's right.
Played by someone I don't know. Unnecessary.
But they create a bomb, hide it in the L.A.
Convention Center that is meant to blow up a square mile of L.A.
and the fallout will wreak havoc across California, I assume.
Yeah, probably. I mean.
But Sean Archer, loosely defined bomb, loosely defined bomb,
has him dead to rights, catches him at the airport, shoot out and sues.
Castor Troy gets karate kicked into a jet engine.
Yeah, like a jet engine, like a turbine that was just set up
in a warehouse and just kind of running unattended.
Oh, no, he was kicked into the console that was right behind it.
So you have to stand behind it to test it.
And then gets blown a good 40 feet into a metal grate
and is presumed to dead. Yeah, true to form.
Yeah. But they don't know where the bomb is.
So they have to use government science
to take Castor Troy's face off and replace it with Sean Archer's.
Also, a lot of needless.
Well, explanation is to what they do.
How their body types are going to.
They remove Sean Archer's face and replace it with Castor Troy's.
Oh, yes, you're right. That that comes later.
Yeah. And the most important part is then his face goes into a goo vat.
Yes, there is a goo vat.
And it floats pretty sweetly.
So after the goo vatting,
Sean Archer has Castor Troy's face,
Nick Cage and as Travolta is now Nick Cage,
right, is sent to a supermax prison where the Geneva Convention does not exist.
We are told put into magnetic Robo boots.
Yep. Where he is put into Genpop and
immediately fights a guy and meets Tom Jane with an awesome wig.
Yeah, true. Meets back up with his brother
and immediately finds out where the bomb's placed, calls his brother an idiot.
And yeah, he really burns that bridge.
Yeah. Before he has a chance to report anything.
He's just like a fucking nerd and like thieves.
All the while, Castor Troy, apparently having your face cut off
is enough to like spike your adrenaline to kick you out of a coma.
Yeah, we'll come right up.
Yeah. And then he kidnaps the scientist
and the two FBI agents who know the truth have them swap faces.
And for reasons we'll get into later, I'm assuming penises
and goes about living Sean Archer's life,
including but not limited to kicking his girlfriend's boyfriend's ass.
Rightfully so. And sleeping with the daughter.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
So you ramble for a while, Nick.
John Travolta playing now the Castor Troy character.
He goes off and like he, you know, diffuses the bomb, becomes America's hero.
He gets his face on a fucking Wheaties box and everybody is super thrilled about him.
Meanwhile, Nicholas Cage playing Sean Archer
is just kind of left to rot in this prison.
He finds a way to escape.
It's a pretty, pretty big Hail Mary, but he does it.
He gets out.
He swims off to safety because it was on an oil rig.
Oh, just off the coast of L.A.
Yeah. Yeah. All those L.A. oil rigs.
And then once he gets back, like he starts goading Archer.
I don't know.
They like getting a fucking gunfight, which turns into a boat fight.
And he jumps a boat off a boat.
There's a weaponized anchor at one point.
Yeah. Weaponized anchor.
That was pretty good.
Boat crashes. They're on the sands.
Some ass just shoots Castor Troy and Tim.
John Travolta gets his face back.
And they adopt the kid of Castor Troy.
Oh, yeah, that's not that Castor Troy has a son.
That's about the same age as Archer's son would have been.
Yeah, it's weird. He gets all emotional.
He's like, we're going to we're going to keep this boy.
And he just springs it on his wife and daughter.
It's like, this is the replacement for Michael.
Yeah. Brings the boy home.
Says, can we keep him?
Tells the daughter, show him his new room, then ask his wife, is this OK?
Yeah. Oh, all the while, everybody is doing
the most ridiculous, stupid, forced, like some family
thing of like touching each other's faces.
Yes. I want to get into that because that was the weirdest thing.
What is with that? They're I don't know.
Archer has this thing with his family where to show love and affection,
he just like puts his hand on their face and then just like
rakes it down their face.
Yeah, it's exactly the thing you do to somebody like a drunk person.
Oh, it's what a drunk person does when they're just saying like, go to sleep, bitch.
Like, no, go to sleep.
Yeah, you're drunk. Go to sleep, bitch.
I'm thinking Archer and his wife's
marital problems aren't solely about their dead son.
I mean, no, probably not.
Joan Allen looks like a real, real treat.
She's the one who plays Archer's wife, if I remember right.
Yes. Yeah.
Gina Gershon plays Castor Troy's maybe girlfriend,
but mother of his child that he may or may not know about.
I don't even know that name.
Oh, Danny Masterson's in this thing. Oh, yes.
Plain, a very aggressive
date for the daughter character.
Yeah. And overly aggressive.
Yeah. I mean, it just seems like unfortunate.
Yeah. Fuck that. Well, yeah.
Yeah. I mean, obviously fuck that guy.
But I don't know, is his case is still like ongoing.
So I'm not going to like defame him.
We just need to.
We just got through the Johnny Depp defamation case.
I don't need the Danny Masterson V.
Fuck. Hey, that is my last name out.
We we do need that for her so we can get this rated higher on Apple.
Did you guys see that depth was actually tied to this originally?
And then, oh, yeah, script and was like, nah.
Well, this movie was originally supposed to cast Stallone and Schwarzenegger.
That would have been amazing.
Yeah, because this was what originally slated for like early 90s,
like 91, I think.
And both those guys were like top of the game at the time.
You could have entirely cut the scene explaining the body
ship shape shifting aspects if you had those guys.
Yeah. Yeah, pretty much.
Yeah. So that's the thing.
They removed all scars, liposuction.
They did the whole thing to give them the same body types,
including giving Sean Archer
Casper Troye's tattoos.
Yeah. And presumably belly button ring.
Of course. Yeah.
That man definitely has a belly button ring.
John Woo's probably got like a little dove bangle inside of it.
There are doves in a church where there is a shootout.
Yeah, there's a lot of church action, like in the beginning,
Casper Troye is dressed up like a priest and he's going around
molesting choir ladies.
And I mean, it happened.
Then he made that one like wild eyed face that everybody's seen on the Internet.
That's the that's the meme I've been talking about.
Yeah, that's a good one.
Biggest problem I always have with this film is how checked out
is Sean Archer's wife because she hasn't slept with her husband in months.
And the first time they do, I'm assuming she's seen his penis in those months
because I I mean, I've done my research on the Internet.
And you know, there's differences.
Then these don't come prepackaged.
Oh, I thought you were specifically Googling these two actors penises.
What I do and what I do in private mode is none of your business.
It's true.
You're discounting the fact that the government was behind this
and they definitely have penis swap technology.
I mean, that's what this technology was initially invented for, I'm sure.
I mean, so at the end, they could get the space and body back.
I would argue to like maybe not put the pounds back on.
Oh, yeah, sure. I mean, they didn't put his stupid little gunshot scar on there
because he didn't need it because he was adopting the child of the man
who killed his child.
That he then went and killed. Yeah.
See, you're hung up on the penis thing.
I'm just struck by this.
Like, why didn't they just cut that?
I mean, it's it's so bad.
It literally just comes in as a sentence at the end of Wikipedia's article on this.
It's like, and then they adopt the kid fulfilling his promise to Sasha.
It's like, what?
Why is that so necessary?
Because now he can move on from his vendetta.
Yeah, I guess. Also.
OK, here's my question.
If the Geneva Geneva Convention isn't a thing in that supermax prison,
I not just torture the brother like they make a whole point about how they have
to get it out of him this way.
I'm like, you know, car.
They use electroshock in there.
Yeah. I mean, it still would violate his constitutional rights.
But the forced lobotomies don't.
Yeah. Obviously.
OK, so the breakout scene.
OK, yeah. Sean Archer as Castor Troy.
Yeah. Getting more confusing.
Aren't you as Troy Archer as Troy.
He makes a point of not killing any of the guards
because they're just doing their job.
And the guy breaks out with he stops from shooting a guard in the face.
But he's more than OK
than shooting a bottle of acid that blows up like horribly scarring three guards.
Yeah. Well, I mean, prison guards, you can presume,
are not completely without shittiness.
I mean, he did promise he was going to get that one guard fired when he got out.
Look, I wasn't given a toothbrush one time on an overnight and I asked for it.
And they're like, fuck you.
You don't get a hygiene pack.
And I'm like, that seems really rude.
Like, I just want to brush my teeth like a civilized person in jail.
And you won't let me.
It's fucked, bro.
We said we're going to talk.
What's your favorite line for Nick Cage line from this film?
Since we are here mostly to talk about Nick Cage,
is it the peach line?
Is it something I tell?
I think it's suck my tongue because it's like who who the fuck is just like suck
my tongue and he says it was such authority.
You know, it's a thing he does.
And it comes up again later.
Sasha mentions it about sucking his tongue.
All the time. It's like, that's fucking weird.
And then like when the FBI agent undercover on the flight actually does it.
Yeah. By the way, there was an FBI agent undercover on the flight where
where Archer again pins him down before the karate kick into the console
with the turbine that knocks him unconscious.
But for all of that, there was an FBI agent undercover on the flight
as a flight attendant, and she sucks on his tongue like aggressively.
Like the way you only do in the 90s.
Oh, 90s sexuality. Yeah.
It was like his entire tongue just out of his mouth, wet.
And she just takes it all without even a slurp.
She just wasn't the cage ask.
I think it's in his writer.
It's really just there to see if people read.
And John Wu is the only one who read it.
Apparently, my suck my tongue.
I don't know.
The line that just I keep thinking about is when he's on drugs after escaping prison
and he excuses himself to the little boys, we room.
Yeah, that had to be ad-libbed.
I can't imagine a Hollywood writer being like little boys, we room.
That'll get me the Oscar.
Can you imagine like Sylvester Stallone saying that?
That's all I think about now.
Yeah.
I can't do a Stallone.
I'm not going to do it because I don't want to get hit with like defamation.
I don't know how defamation works into this.
I probably say something real stupid.
I'd be more concerned about actually getting hit by Stallone.
I mean, I think that'd be good for both of us to get hit by Stallone.
Yeah. I mean, it'd be a story.
It would be pretty good.
It elevates one career at least.
Not mine because I'll be on disability for a while.
I think I'll be on hold.
Oh, I'm an illustrator.
So I probably just make my art more interesting.
The pain that I could draw upon.
I guess.
I mean, if you followed any of that plot with our just absurd ADD.
We will.
Next episode, we'll maybe write down what we'll be doing.
Maybe write down the recaps and read them.
We won't.
Yeah.
So that's I like the off the cuff.
I think it's a little bit more authentic.
OK, it's dumb, but I like it.
So that's fine. It actually involves less of me and I'm OK with that.
So according to IMDB trivia, not that I don't put my all into this podcast.
I've really dedicated myself to it.
I mean, you dedicate yourself to watching 64 Nicolas Cage films.
Yeah, and I stretch in between them. So it's cool.
According to IMDB trivia, Nicholas Cage and John Travolta spent two weeks together
trying to learn each other's mannerisms and discuss lines that they could replicate of each other's to cross the characters.
What are the odds that they kissed during that time?
Oh, 100 percent. That's the first thing they did.
Well, I would have to learn how to do the suck my tongue thing because, you know, he went home and did that to Eve.
He's just like, baby, suck my tongue.
I don't know what John Travolta sounds like.
Apparently, Elvis, you're not far off.
Don't sue me, Elvis. I know you're out there.
Apparently, John Travolta was also a little butthurt about the ridiculous chin line.
That was a really good one.
And making him like diss himself. That's just funny.
I do want to say, though, the action in this film is peak woo.
Oh, yeah, that's great.
You can shoot a gun with two feet planted on the floor.
Everyone is constantly diving over everything while shooting and missing.
Yeah. And fully automatic pistols, fully automatic pistols with like 30 round magazines just unloading on beaches.
They're, I will say, probably the best like cinematography.
That's a word when they meet for the first time in the room of mirrors, because there's just a room with just mirrors.
They're on either side of it and they turn to shoot the other person through the mirror, but they see the reflection of their most hated enemy, who is them.
I thought that was pretty cool. So the director of photography, Oliver Wood, is his name.
He notably also made Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey. Nice. Yeah.
Another deep, powerful visual movie. Yes. And most recently, Morbius.
Oh, new game, Six Degrees of Morbius. So, yes, this is a fun romp.
That's a great movie. It's literally got everything. Like, it's got everything.
I would argue, and this might be a trend for a lot of these films, that you could probably skip the first 40 minutes of it and still get just as much out of it.
This thing is this movie is very weighted towards the back half when they actually get to interact.
That's true. It's a slow start. Like, you get your popcorn ready and maybe have a beer in the first half hour and then it gets going.
Then then the wild ride starts. But anyway, I think it's fair to say that, yes, I like this movie. I'm going to say, yeah, I enjoy it.
Whether it's better than Jiu Jitsu or not, I mean, we'll just have to hang in there and find out.
But who doesn't like Face Off? Great movie. Full range of acting from Nicolas Cage.
You get to see him like just a maniac. You get to see him like we do get some emotional crying. We get everything.
It's it's pretty great. It's got fucking hot ass golden handguns. I forgot about the gold handguns.
Yeah, just he's so unhinged in this and it's so good. Yeah. Great. Great movie. Could have been better if he kept the mustache.
Yes. So ultimately, it is also worth noting that this movie was nominated for an Oscar for sound design.
We're right in it, but it lost to Titanic. Titanic was really on a run that year, too, so I'm not surprised. Yeah, I had a good show.
Anyway, next film is Jiu Jitsu from 2020. And I think we're all really excited to talk about this one.
It's the one that kind of stole our hearts. Looking around the room shockingly.
You know what? I loved this film for all the wrong reasons. The first time I watched it, I hated it.
The second time I watched it, I started to understand it.
And this is where like I went full Stockholm syndrome because the third and fourth times I've watched this movie, I found it just actually charmingly bad.
Yeah, like the script kind of it's got. I mean, it's so high school. I don't know. Like it's OK.
I can sum this one up much quicker than we did face off. Please.
The Predator meets Mortal Kombat. Every six years, a comet flies over the earth, bringing with it a strange alien fighter
who apparently and belong long ago came to Earth and taught humanity Jiu Jitsu so he could come fight six, nine fighters every six years.
Every six years, he shows up six of the nines. Nice.
Kills nine fighters. I'm assuming teenagers with attitude, considering the production value of this.
And then fucks off back to his space car and does it six years later.
Yeah, this guy's got a weird edge that he has to scratch.
The caveat being if if one of the fighters refuses to fight, he can murder the world.
Yeah. And that's only true unless it's not, which we can get into.
So I was struck by how bad this movie is and also really enjoyed some of the reviews. I noted two of them in particular.
Nice. Jiu Jitsu is a movie with no Jiu Jitsu.
Yep. And I watched this movie to the end to see if it got better.
It didn't. I will say you can see where they spent their money and where they definitely didn't.
I can tell you this. Their budget was 25 million and five million of it was Nicholas Cage.
Which is for three days of work. Well, OK.
So and you can definitely tell when it's not Nicholas Cage because of the bad wig on the on the body that is definitely not Nick Cage's.
Yeah, he did do 80 percent of his own stunts and he does do Brazilian Jiu Jitsu like he does know that.
So that was pretty interesting. Yeah, I will say goes full cage from the get go.
Not my favorite line, but an amazing line from this film is get off my piano. Oh, yeah.
Or the that's my favorite chair. I thought you'd like it.
So either way, the movie starts off with the unnamed currently unnamed protagonist running through a field in a sick ass mesh sleeveless jacket being shot at.
Yeah, it's like a brawler with a cape on it. Yes. Being shot at with off brand predator predator blades.
Yeah, just the jungle that are just being shot from every angle and none of them are rendered in the current lighting until our hero jumps off a cliff into the ocean where he is later saved by Nicholas Cage and an old fisherman stitched up by the fisherman's wife and then dropped off at a nearby military installation where we are introduced to a bunch of characters we will never see again.
Yeah. Did you notice when he was running through the forest and then like jumped off that thing like he's running around.
He's got his bralette and his cape and he's like, I don't know, doing ninja runs. And then he goes through a bush and jumps off the cape.
Yeah, and then it's all gone. It's like it just got ripped off of him. But it was just the reverse of plot armor.
This movie sucks. So we're going to take away your things. The next important character we're introduced to.
I use important with a lot of sarcasm is crab man from Earl. Yeah.
Darnel, whose name I did look up for this and have immediately forgotten. It's Eddie Steeples. Eddie Steeples, who is hamming it up in this role. He is apparently the interpreter to speak with the locals.
The movie takes place in Burma. Oh, I thought it was Myanmar. Is it Myanmar? That's literally a quote from the movie. That's right.
Which is the same place also, by the way. That's the same place, isn't it? Yeah. Yes. So my dumb self had to look that up.
I was like, why do they say that? And I was like, oh, because Myanmar is well, Burma is Myanmar.
Either way, it's a plot point that he doesn't speak the language that is never used except for comic relief when he shows up in the third act mysteriously.
Right. Well, they don't interact with people outside of military people and ninjas and ninjas.
So our hero is interrogated by a Ronda Rousey type and given truth serum.
But he doesn't remember anything except he has a weird Geiger counter thing that he remembers what it does, but doesn't remember anything else.
I don't think he even remembers what it does. He just remembers that it's his. Well, he said it tracks radiation.
Oh, did he? Yeah. Then he beats up a bunch of people to escape, but then gets. Oh, man.
Can we talk about that horrible? Are we on the hardcore Henry scene? No, that's where we're about to get to.
Then another teenager with attitude who shows up in another sick ass mesh top walks onto the base and proceeds to just kick everyone's ass.
Yeah. Soldiers with guns. He just punches them and they're like, OK, well, obviously we can't shoot him.
And there's a lot of him like jumping over walls. And then in the background, there's just a large explosion.
Then he comes like kicking his way through a door and kicking more ass up to the point where he gets to the hero.
They do a sick ass like predator style arm grab and get the fuck out of there.
Where we go to the hardcore Henry ask first person chase sequence where you were seen through the main characters chest because it's real low.
Yeah, it's definitely the belly button cam.
And it's not terrible until he gets hit and gets knocked to the ground.
And then we're in a third person view from where he was laying on the ground of him getting up, kicking ass.
And then he gets knocked back into where the camera is. And then we're suddenly back in first person mode.
So it goes first to second to first to second. Yeah. Very odd.
A fun game during this part of the movie is seeing if you can catch all the crash pads.
Yes, you can see them all. Yeah. So, yes, it's not that hard of a game.
All visible under. Hey, I liked the CG bullet holes that would appear in walls occasionally.
Yeah. Oh, they were real good. They look like stickers.
Yeah. Like I said, you can definitely see where the money wasn't spent on this film.
Yeah. And where it didn't need to be spent, because there's a lot of CG blood shooting out of people.
Yeah, but it matches. I mean, there's a general aesthetic to all of the special effects on it that just tie together.
And if they didn't do the blood that way, it would lose that fake comic book look.
Oh, that's another thing. All the scenes are transitioned through with bad Photoshop filter comic book panels.
Yeah. Not like a classic wipe or anything. No.
It just goes, you know, bad filter and then transition right into a scene.
Well, either way. So or fade our hero and his little buddy escape to a field where they meet the rest of the Power Rangers.
Yeah, they all pop up out of the grass and we are taught.
We are told the main character name. It's Jake.
And any time anyone refers to Jake, they start their sentence with Jake and then their sentence with Jake.
Jake, where have you been, Jake?
Jake doesn't remember who any of these people are, Jake, because of his amnesia.
But then he's obviously got a girlfriend in the crowd because she gets real sweet on him right away.
Oh, yeah. Juju Chan. Yeah. Playing Carmen. The character's name is Carmen.
Also, yeah. What is Frank Grillo doing in this film? I don't know.
Obviously, just sliding. I mean, the MCU can't save everybody's career, I guess.
I suppose not. But I mean, Nicolas Cage is in it.
And if you told me that I could be in a movie with Nicolas Cage, I'd do it. OK, fair.
So I don't think Frank Grillo is above that. No, no.
We're on pretty much the same same level, Frank and I.
So all the Power Rangers have their own mesh tops and unique weapons to their fighting style.
Yeah, pretty unique.
The little guy who saves Jake has the best weapons of all pipes.
Yeah, they're just PVC tonfa. Yeah.
You could make each one out of like six dollars worth of materials from Home Depot.
Like everyone else has in an afternoon.
Everyone else has like an actual weapon like the big the big guy has a club.
The guy with the staff is really just kind of swinging around a piece of conduit.
It's hollow. You can see the end of it.
Yeah, but he pulls them apart and there's blades in there.
I'm just saying, like, those were definitely PVC pipes.
Yeah, the tonfa were definitely PVC pipes. They were just bad.
I mean, it was it was a choice, clearly.
So the army shows up, they fight the army, Jake is recaptured by the army
only to go out with the army to track the actual villain of the piece, Brax.
Yeah, Brax is the alien dude. Yeah.
Yeah, that's that's how this movie the movie starts off with bad predator
stealth camo.
And then we're about 25 minutes into it again before they remind you that there's an alien.
Just we could do this weird amnesia storyline.
So they go out into the jungle.
They're all immediately taken down by predator blades and Jake escapes again
to meet up with his party.
Oh, no, because then he meets up with Nick.
He falls in and Nick Cage is underground.
Yeah. It is what cage cave, the cage cave where they have a bit of a dust up
for whatever reason. Yeah. For reasons.
I mean, Nick Cage obviously recognized him.
He was kind of goading him about things. Yeah.
Kind of giving him a hard time getting him to jump up on his piano to dodge fights.
So get off my piano. Yeah.
Pushing him in a chair. His favorite chair.
Uh huh. He thought he'd like it.
Watch the film. You'll think this is hilarious.
You won't think it's hilarious. You'll think we're idiots.
But I mean, they don't need to watch the film to think we're idiots.
They should still watch the film. Agreed.
I thoroughly enjoy it.
I enjoyed it the first time too. I don't know that I did.
Turned my brain off. They they have a dust up.
The rest of the Power Rangers show up.
Nicolas Cage, whose name is Wiley. Yeah.
I feel like that needs to be mentioned.
He's got like sweet shoulder length hair and a bandana. Yes.
He looks like he just got off like an easy rider fan convention.
According to IMDB, the character depiction was based on Willie Nelson.
Okay. That's reasonable.
Or Wiley Nelson.
Why wouldn't you just call him Willie then?
Because Wiley. Wiley.
I'm guessing as in Coyote.
No, Wiley because he's tricksy. This is true.
So they fight. There's a piano, there's a chair.
We're idiots. And then the movie goes on.
Then we get to get back to the actual plot armor, the mesh clothing,
which makes them, as long as they cover their body with it,
completely invisible to Brax, unless it doesn't.
Well, and it only works if you have your exposed arms and face.
Yeah, they say cover your whole body with it and you won't be seen.
But it literally just hangs down their backs and they put the hood
just up to their hairline.
Yeah, because they're still paid to see these actors.
No sleeves on any of these things. Yeah.
So Brax should just be seen like some arms walking around.
Yeah, just so they don't be able to see them from behind. Yes.
And the plot armor works great because we do see through Brax's point of view,
which is low budget Predator vision, them walking through the jungle.
Yeah. Perfectly fine.
Until he gets into their first fight with the guy with the staff,
which Brax doesn't see him.
And this guy is the biggest arms out of all of them that are fully exposed.
Doesn't see him until the guy like pulls off his hood.
Yeah. Yeah.
So he's pulling off the hood exposed his entire body when they were face to face.
So and before any of you complain that why don't they just all beat up Brax at once?
Apparently, they can't for reasons that are never explained.
Yeah. They have to fight and die one on one.
Except for the times when they fight as duos and die as duos. Yes.
And sometimes a trio. Yeah.
So it doesn't matter.
The rules are made up and they don't matter. Yeah.
So Brax starts taking them out one by one.
Oh, before that, though, when they were telling Jake the plan,
Jake questions the plan.
Jake is told it was his plan.
And then everybody gives him shit. Yeah.
But it was your blood. How do you forget your plan?
Is your plan. Don't make him feel bad.
You're confusing him about his plan.
Forgetting that he has amnesia. Yeah.
Like an insensitive.
I'm glad they all die. Yeah.
So, yeah, they all have to fight with honor.
Brax does not know because he has a mutant healing factor
and shoots blades out of his arm.
Turns invisible and invisible has super speed that is never used in combat.
Yeah. Anyway, so the rest of the movie is everyone getting picked off one by one.
A pretty decent cage fight with Brax.
Yeah, but they got their money's worth out of that one.
Yeah, we get some backstories to what happened with Jake
and why he was running the beginning of the film.
Turns out he saw what Brax could do and said, Nope, and ran away.
Yeah, he got all cowardly, which is understandable.
I've never fought an alien, so I could act like I'd be real cool and strong about it.
But I don't think I would. Then you saw the alien ran away. Yeah.
So, yes, like I mentioned, there is a really good like Nick Cage fight with Brax.
Nick Cage's entire movie has his like pretty cool like bamboo like sword and like a bamboo shoot
that he like we only ever see him kind of pull out.
He does not use that sword in a fight because before he fights Brax,
he opens a chest and pulls out a sword and stares at it with like hope in his eyes.
And then in the fight scene, completely different sword. Yeah.
So Nick Cage's backstory is he was six years ago.
He was supposed to fight Brax, but begged for his life.
And Brax don't fight cowards. So Brax let him go.
Well, Brax thought he was insane.
There's no honor in killing the insane. All right.
And that's why he got to live.
Also, so Wiley has been pretending to be insane since then.
Who's choosing these fighters, by the way?
Like, is there a council? Like, who's deciding who's going to go out and fight Brax?
I'm assuming you train up nine apprentices a year.
And so you've always got, you know, five levels of Jiu Jitsu apprentices coming up
and you just sacrifice the six like as you grow up, your sixth year.
Time to go fight alien Jesus and die.
Oh, I thought you meant like just the year before you just gather up six people, nine people to fight.
Like, you know, Nick Cage is just like, why don't why do we wait to the last year?
No, you get five years of your life to train.
And in the sixth year, you have to just die.
Yeah. Brax is not a machine.
Bullets, by the way.
No, he's he can heal himself, but he's mowed down with a minigun for a minute.
And he's shot with a shotgun and that gives him pause and not like dog paws.
But either way, so be a weird turn of events.
Brax fight next. Brax fights Nick Cage ends up killing the cage with a kind of Batman nightful,
all breaking the bat like over the knee backbreaker.
Well, he killed him four times, I think.
Like it's there's a little overkill.
He stabbed him like like three times in the stomach.
Then he did a backbreaker, then said his throat, then he slits his throat.
And then I'm pretty sure in the end, he like gets a bucket and drowns him.
He's real thorough all the while.
Jake and the love interest are just watching helplessly from the shadows.
Because let's not forget, Jake is still a coward.
Yes. Well, and this is but the thing that gets him out of out of his cowardice,
the thing that shakes him awake is when the love interest asks him if he remembers who that old man was.
Of course, Jake does. And he has amnesia.
Turns out he was your father all along.
And then we have some flashbacks to Jake being young, Jake being raised by a man who isn't a kid.
Yeah. So I guess that's been debunked.
So when when Jake fell into the cage cave, why didn't Wiley tell him that he was his dad?
You're thinking about this too much. I'm sorry.
I'm assuming he would have just been trying to knock some sense into him like, oh, what's going on?
Or like just playing like maybe they had this repertoire or they would get together and like he was his favorite chair.
Yeah, I was thinking about that once I knew the twist.
So anyway, Brack shows up.
Darnell shows up again with grenades. Yeah.
Now they're at the temple. They're at the temple of the portal. Yeah.
Portal temple, which I'm going to say, like when they did the effect of the portal opening as Bracks came back through,
I was actually kind of like, oh, this is a pretty decent effect.
It looks pretty good until Brack's runs through.
And then he fucking Ezra Miller's his way in just running like an idiot.
And the green screening is just rough.
And I feel, you know, I really feel like the guy who played Brack's got paid appropriately.
I don't know what he got paid, but it's not Nick Cage money.
I will say, though, like I said, you see where the money went and the Brack's outfit is pretty decent.
OK, speaking of how Brack's looks, he he's got this like mask that has like a little faceplate thing on it.
And it's usually got like a little foggy cloud.
But every once in a while when he gets all rage, bonery and like starts to kill somebody is stupid.
Alien face comes out of the mist, but it's a 2D drawing, which was apparently done by a drunken Nick Cage.
Yeah, he drew it on a napkin and the director was like this fucking slaps.
And so he put it in the movie like too many times. Yes.
Like, I can't see why they didn't just make a mask or a prosthetic or something for the guy's face to at least make it look three dimensional in there.
Nope. Oh, man. It even looks like a sketch.
It doesn't look like somebody went in like they didn't even pay somebody to scan it and like touch it up in Illustrator.
Yeah, it should have been shown once at the end of the film. Yeah, when he dies, when he dies, but not like all the time.
Just have the glowing red eyes. That would have been enough. Yeah.
If he dies, if he knows no spoilers here, people anyway.
So back to the ending of the movie, Brax and Jake have a punch up.
Jake has learned from earlier on in the film from Tony Jaa, who's shockingly in this movie.
Yeah. Also not one of the top two like leads of the movie.
Now, Nicholas Cage, Tony Jaa, neither of them leading this movie.
Both of them worked. I mean, we know for sure Nick Cage only worked three days on this movie.
They probably had Jaa for the same amount of time, probably less, honestly.
Well, from the first time you see Nicholas Cage to the second time, there's a 30 minute gap. Yeah.
There's probably 30 minutes of the movie that include Nicholas Cage. And then it's over. Yeah.
It's like and then he dies and is dead for the last 20. You get about like 37 minutes of Nicholas Cage. Yeah.
Tony Jaa tells Jake after after telling him, I have a license to kill you and that license does not expire.
But now I'm going to plot exposition how to kill the alien to you, that the alien can be hurt.
And it takes him about five seconds to regenerate.
So with this knowledge, which is not true based on everything we've seen, it's now wholly up to like how they feel in that scene.
Yes. And how long it takes, because sometimes you cut him like half of a half open.
I was at half off. That'd be weird.
Cut some half off and it just heals immediately.
But then you, you know, poking with a pencil and it takes five, 10 seconds.
And I loved it. So either way, they killed.
He kills Brax in the most honorable way possible. Blows a hole in him, then shoves a grenade in there.
Yeah. Two grenades. Then kicks him into the portal.
Then kicks him into the portal. Yeah. Oh, I got a question.
Why did the portal crack like it opened up?
Brax comes through, it like gets cracked, but it still works because it opens back up and they like kick him into it.
Thinking too much about this plot. I'm not even trying to think about the plot.
I'm just like mostly impressed with the scenery. Yeah.
But again, where the money went is obvious. Yeah. The sets are nice.
Yes, that's turned out pretty good. So many of them read as like classic, like video game platformers.
Like when they're escaping in the desert, like a military base, it's set up like it would have been in Counter Strike.
There's things to hide behind, like boxes with cargo netting and there's ruins, ruins to like run on top of.
And it was very, I don't know, ungraceful Assassin's Creed.
Favorite Nick Cage line from this film.
So there's a scene where the group of ninjas is walking into, I think it was the temple.
And Nick Cage was like, oh, you know, I'm kind of hungry. Does anybody have something I could eat?
Maybe, maybe I could pop down and get like a noodle or something from the temple.
And it's like somebody's like, get Wiley something to eat somebody.
And it's like, OK, well, that was just like a throw away thing.
But then, like literally in the next scene, like in Carmen, I think shows up with some food and like in a bag, just a bag, little like brown lunch sack and hands it to Wiley.
And he just kind of looks at it and he says, yeah, I could eat.
What? It's just so dumb.
It's like somebody please feed Riley or Wiley.
And then they do.
And he's just like so nonplussed about it like, yeah, OK, I guess I could eat.
I don't know what he ate.
I don't know where she got it.
Well, we later see him like cooking a fish on a stick.
Yeah. I mean, he obviously is a character who enjoys to eat.
Yes. Which is fine.
He was the most dad bod of all the ninjas.
Yes. Well, you know, he six years of not training to fight a spaceman.
Yeah. So because why would you continue to train when you're already like excuse you're out?
So we know my second favorite line, which is, oh, get off my piano.
But the best line in this film was the poet warrior in the sci fi sense.
The spaceman. Yeah.
Give that man another Oscar.
All right. So we touched on the fact that this thing costs 25 million to make.
Yes. Obviously, it came out during covid times.
It was November 20, 20. Yeah.
How much money do you think this may I did look at it?
Don't answer. I know as well.
I look at it. It's so bad.
It's so depressing. It's like under one hundred thousand.
Right. Yeah. One hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred and twenty four dollars. And I looked at those and I did some like inflation math.
Yeah. If nine more people had bought a ticket, it would have hit one hundred K. Oh, man.
I would have bought a ticket. Nine people.
Yeah. I mean, it's that's depressingly bad.
I mean, this is a depressing bad film that is so much fun and everyone needs to see it.
It's on Netflix right now. It's absolutely.
Yeah. If you're listening in the in the future and it's not on Netflix, you're kind of bone.
Like, I don't know what to tell you. But right now, at this undisclosed time, it's on Netflix.
So here's my fun fact for this film. Nick Cage was choice number two to play Wiley.
It was originally meant for Bruce Willis. Oh, yeah.
Who, according to the director, director loved the script, but never got back to him or his people.
Yeah. Well, I mean, for the best, he got with that cosmic sins movie.
And that was a rough one. I don't know if anybody's seen that.
It's not it's.
We're not here to talk about Bruce Willis. Yeah, we shouldn't.
We shouldn't talk about that movie. I wish him the best with his aphasia.
Yes. Don't sue me. I think.
Thoughts and opinions of this podcaster that belong to those who say them and no one else.
I got my thoughts and opinions from a guy on the street. So you go after him.
So I got it. I got to ask the question, like, do you like this movie?
You ended up talking about this about two thirds more than you talked about face off at this point.
Everyone's seen face off that we needed to explain the rich tapestry that was to Jetson. Yeah.
Yes, I like this movie. It's not a good movie, but I like it.
It's more fun to talk about things that are bad.
I could sit down and watch this movie again months from now.
Not like, oh, I mean, I could watch it again this week, but I don't want to.
I've seen it four times already. Just to be fair.
I mean, I think it's pretty I think we have a clear winner this week.
Yeah, there's clearly a better movie.
No matter how much I enjoy watching it, it's not better than face off.
No, it is not. OK. Oh, the big reveal.
What do we think? Fuck, we already fucked it up.
We get people roped into like our fucking.
I mean, the people who are who have mistakenly decided to click on this podcast and see what the first episode are.
No, you guys are actually great. You're all fantastic.
And we love you. Thank you, Josh.
You promised to listen to this. Yeah.
If you don't listen, Josh, I know where you live.
We're going to quiz you later. I'm not going to pet your dog.
When we get one of you, we know it's Josh. They can they can sue us all they want.
They know we don't have any money. Yeah.
Face off. Clearly a better movie. You knew this going in.
No, it's got. Well, it's actually a Nicolas Cage movie.
Yes, I feel like we kind of I mean, we don't know all these movies.
No, I'd never heard of it until I came up with this dumb idea.
Just being and Peter said, hey, what about you, Jitsu?
Yeah, just being billed as a Nicolas Cage movie was a little I mean, I've seen it with other movies.
He's he's the actor that's going to get you to watch it.
And we did. This is one of those and Nicolas Cage films. Yes.
With Nicolas Cage. But he is at his cageist.
I would happily put this within the cage of songs.
It's the Renaissance of cage films as a performance. It's pretty good.
Yeah, it's a little I think it's a little mild.
It's not I expected lazier.
I didn't. I knew he was going to give us a unique performance for it.
Yeah. And I didn't think he was going to phone it in.
I've never seen him phone in a row, which is what actually makes this whole thing interesting.
It's like he's going to try this whole time. So I'm going to try with him.
So that's a it's two down.
So we will be returning to face off eventually.
But yeah, those are our thoughts on face off and Jiu Jitsu.
This is our first podcast. We remind you, we will probably get better at this.
No, everyone shaking their heads. It's worth a shot. Yeah.
Anyway, I'm having fun.
Any final thoughts on either movie and or just Nick Cage in general?
The man is a genius. He is definitely a hardworking actor.
It's good to see. I highly recommend both films.
I would say you should watch both of them. Definitely watch them both.
And you know what? Make it a double feature. Don't don't make a double feature.
I've done that. I did that today. It's a lot.
I did it yesterday. It's fine. Or do whatever.
Watch along with us. Yeah, we'll find a way to actually remember
which movies we're watching for the next episode so we can tell you at the end of whatever episode we record.
Do we have the bracket up? What do we want to do next time?
I think we should save weird for last. Yeah, do we want to do funny or serious?
Oh, I think we were down to wasn't adaptation like the top of the next one.
Yeah. So if we if we go for funny, it's adaptation against Army of One,
which is great because I don't think I've seen either of these movies.
I've seen adaptation a long time ago.
I'm going to I want to go with that because while doing research for Jujitsu,
this film had one of three Nick Cage swordfight performances in it.
And in Army of One, he apparently has a swordfight with Osama Bin Laden.
Awesome. OK. Adaptation and Army of One.
Yeah, that's what you're going to have to watch before you listen to us again.
Otherwise, it won't make sense. And we'll all know you were lazy.
Do your homework. Stay in school. Drink your milk.