Tomorrowland, Terminator: Genisys, Vacation, American Ultra (all 2015) and more…

Brad Bird’s Tomorrowland (2015) is a fascinating throwback Disney fantasy, one that uses wide-eyed optimism and wonder as its badge, versus the parade of gritty fantasy movies clogging cinemas. The plot: A teen (Britt Robertson) is given a pin that can transport her when touched and the object sets her off to find a recluse inventor (George Clooney). No more details. Yes, the Tomorrowland theme-park ride figures, as do robots, Tesla, and the Eiffel Tower. The movie has a fun kick. But problems galore: Cooney is miscast as a guy who hasn’t left his farm in years, but looks like a Hollywood spa’s MVP. The opening shots have him gabbing endlessly into the camera. That grinds. More so, the plot could have used streamlining to bounce rather than crawl. Story resets vibe like time killers, rather than misadventure lessons. Props to Bird for doing something different, though, and putting young females in the drivers’ seat. B

Left Behind (2014) is the second telling of the Jesus Returns book series that was everywhere during the 1990s. It’s as awful as the 1994 Kirk Cameron vehicle. No. This is worse. Nicolas Cage (!!) plays Rayford Steele (!!), America’s Greatest Pilot, on his way to London and a U2 concert with a Slut Stewardess. Jesus snaps His magic fingers, and all believers and children vanish. The Left Behind go whack. So much is wrong with this shit, it’s bewildering. What kills me: “Left Behind” seems made by wealthy bigoted white American Christians for wealthy bigoted white American Christians. The GOP elite. The people Jesus visited: The poor, criminal, outcasts… none are here. They are background extras, running in panic. Not worth our attention. Or God's. The one black female? Goes gun crazy on an airplane. Bigotry and conservatism together? Shocker. The fate of that U2 concert is more important than those Christ so loved. Goddamn this movie. F

Midway through Terminator: Genisys (2015), a school bus flips a somersault on the Golden Gate Bridge. Why? Because the CGI special effects studio guys said they could animate it. Divorced of any suspense or remote logic, the spectacle of James Cameron’s 1984 classic is fast becoming a faint, lost memory. Our leads in this time-warp sequel/reboot/snore are Jai Courtney (“A Good Day to Die Hard”) and Emelia Clarke (“Game of Thrones”) as the same heroes from the original. They have no chemistry or intensity. They are voids. Hamilton and Biehn killed in the original. Arnold Schwarzenegger appears, and every time Clarke calls him “Pops,” my geek soul died. C-

Vacation (2015) is another reboot/sequel that casts Rusty Griswald (Ed Helms) as the bumbling dad in place of Clark (Chevy Chase), trying to get cross country with wife and kids. Mayhem ensues. Chase and Beverly D’Angelo appear. It’s not terrible, it’s not memorable, if you love penis jokes, enjoy. The prior films are name dropped in a fourth-wall busting opener. Seen the trailer? That’s all. B-

Seven Days in May (1964) comes from John Frankenheimer, my favorite director. This is another of his paranoid thrillers, but does not pack the same punch –- the whole ending is a long lecture -– yet the story resonates. A Pentagon lawyer (Kirk Douglas) suspects his boss (Burt Lancaster) of plotting to overthrow the White House in a War Hawk move meant to push war with Russia to the Kill ’Em All point. Look, I love Frankenheimer, but Douglas’ flat hero pales next to Lancaster’s evil demigod. A slight dip for John F. B+

Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart re-team from “Adventureland” in American Ultra (2015), a stoner Jason Bourne comedy with Eisenberg as a slug with a mind-wiped CIA past, and Stewart as his devoted girlfriend. This is a ridiculous flick made for potheads, but a bust –- a plot twist comes as the lamest reveal outside of the crap in “Terminator: Genisys.” Props, though, to Eisenberg and Stewart’s unbeatable chemistry. C+

Desk Set (1957) teams perfect co-stars/couple Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn in a workplace comedy that plays goofy tricks with a “super calculator” as a 50-years early precursor to the Internet, daring to replace research staffers. It’s dated, but that very fact is perfect. I laughed so damn hard. A-

The Frozen Ground (2013)

“The Frozen Ground” got me burning mad. Nicolas Cage as cop. John Cusack as serial killer. Shot and chopped up young women. Alaska. True story. 1980s. The whole murky grisly movie works OT to condemn violence against and the objectification of women ... And yet writer/director Scott Walker’s camera stares nose close at Disney Princess Vanessa Hudgen’s stripper ass as she stage grinds. Because one can’t make a film about strippers and hookers being slaughtered by a loser kook without a little T&A stage action. At least if everyone behind the camera is male. Maybe only women should make films about cruel ways men treat women. Especially talking fact. Plot: Cusack’s Robert Hansen has 20 girls in the grave, but Hudgens’ (“Spring Breakers”) prostitute/stripper has escaped and can ID him. Her lone hero is Cage’s cop, who works so hard on the job, his family is neglected. Nothing on screen differs from an episode of “Law & Order: SVU,” so we only have stunt casting to cheer. Cusack underplays. So does Cage. The less said about 50 Cent’s pimp, the better. Recalling the victims to pop music: Ugly bad move. D+

The Croods (2013)

In “The Croods,” Dreamworks’ sticks a Griswald-like family in the Stone Age, cave people still moping around with no fire and staring helpless as the land mass known as Pangaea breaks apart to form what we now recognize as Earth. (Try explaining this to your 4-year-old.) Plot: Ignorant dad (Nicolas Cage) is scared of all things new, while teen daughter Eep (Emma Stone) is ready to explore and push pop’s rules off a cliff. So, yes, it’s “Brave” B.C., with the inevitable scene where grumpy dad admits he’s wrong, and spunky kid is right. A genre staple as old as cave drawings, for sure. We’ll see it again. But even “Croods” cannot carry its story to the finish, switching midway from Eep’s perspective to the father’s. (It’s all so beware-climate-change liberal heavy-handed, even I blanched.) Much of the animation surprises, though: Prehistoric pets are imagined outside the box and will delight children and adults, and a gag involving early photography got this shutterbug laughing. The rest: Forgettable. C+

Knowing (2009)

“Knowing” is forgetting. In 1958 Massachusetts, a frantic girl scribbles seemingly random numbers on a sheet of paper that is then placed inside a time capsule that is dug up 50 years later by another group of children, one of whom is the son of an MIT professor (Nicolas Cage). Widowed, drunk, and sure that God is dead, our troubled hero stumbles upon a code in the numbers -– it marks the date, map location, and death toll of every disaster since ’58 until the end. As in End of Times. Director Alex Proyas (“Dark City” and “I am Legend”) has served up a dark Christian apocalypse thriller with no way out, and if you go for angel starships and religion-heavy films that drop 9/11 tragedy and people burning to death with barely a shrug, and that God naturally only saves white American children, then have at. Not me. This is not deep or knowing, and it does not dare question what kind of god plays this cruel. Stupidity abounds. Dig the scene where Cage uses a magic ID card stamped “Academic” to get by the police. Really?!? Where can I and my wife get that? C-

Stolen (2012)

If Liam Neeson from “Taken” showed up in Nicolas Cage’s my-daughter’s-been-kidnapped thriller “Stolen,” the movie would have lasted 15 minutes. But he doesn’t. Cage plays Will, a master thief who sees life get worse after an eight year stint in prison. Case 1: Cops are on him like creepy on a Southern politician. Case 2: His presumed dead ex-partner (Josh Lucas) is out for revenge, snatching said daughter. The plot centers around taxi cabs. Lucas’ thug tools around in one. Will steals another. Why? No idea. Up against the always unhinged Cage, Lucas seems to have taken the villain role as a one-up challenge. After the prologue, he sports greasy surfer hair, a lazy eye, shaving scars, rotten teeth, an emphysemic cough, and a fake leg. He screams and growls every line. If this freak dropped into a “Pirates of the Caribbean” film, he’d get strange looks. Cage reacts by talking Swedish. Seriously. The climax of this Simon West flick one-ups the actors with a fight to the death not seen since “Freddy vs. Jason.” At an abandoned amusement park. Zany. Crazy. Terrible. Laughable. Grotesque. Better than the “Taken” sequel. C-

Seeking Justice (2012)

“Seeking Justice” has an intriguing premise –- a New Orleans husband in a fit of anguish agrees to have killed the man who assaulted his wife, only to learn he has to commit a hit on his own in reciprocation –- but quickly stumbles. A low-broil Nicolas Cage stars as the distraught Will Gerard, who is confronted in the ER waiting room by Guy Pearce as the devil with the Faustian revenge pact, sporting a scumbag vibe so thick, it chokes the air. Clearly, Will never watched “Ghost Rider,” or heard of Faust despite being an English teacher. So the plot kicks off and the coincidences stack high as everyone -– even those closest to Will –- is in on the game, and our hero sports 007 skills to survive. Directed by Roger Donaldson, “Justice” has that striking “What would you do?” idea upfront, but it’s never in doubt that Will will do right, his wife will believe him, and Pearce will monologue. Once titled “The Hungry Rabbit Jumps,” the film smells of a tedious production that paved over a good, taunt script for tired Hollywood thriller action car chases and shoot outs. C

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2012)

Endlessly loud, obnoxiously edited, and sporting two (!) scenes of its anti-hero pissing flames, “Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance” is a ridiculously bad reboot/sequel to the equally limp 2007 hit that starred Nicolas Cage as Johnny Blaze, a motorcycle daredevil who is eternally cursed as a demonic stooge with a flaming skull. Film No. 1 neutered the cult-hit Marvel character into popping jellybeans with Cage all wiggy Cage-like. “Spirit” moves the action from America to Eastern Europe, packing along a “Terminator 2” plot: Blaze must save a mother and son who are being hunted by the relentless Mephistopheles (Cirian Hinds). The kid is no John Connor hero, but the Anti-Christ. Yikes! Numbskull directing duo Neveldine and Taylor (“Gamer”) ride “Rider” into the ground with smash and grab edits that ruin every action scene, and unleash a sweaty, over-the-top Cage. The story hints at the Rider being a danger to any sinner -– even the Devil’s poor baby-mama -– but never delivers. Both films’ curse: Ghost Rider’s charcoal stick figure with its impenetrable all-CGI fiery skull makes it impossible to give a rat’s ass about Blaze’s spirit one way or another. Hell with him. D+

Trespass (2011)

“Trespass” is a clichéd home-invasion thriller ransacked by such bad acting, inane dialogue and crap pacing that made me wish the invading thugs out to steal diamonds and cash would just pop the miserable husband and wife played by Nicolas Cage and Nicole Kidman. The film – dumped in theaters and put on DVD within a single month -- vibes wrong from the start as Cage, wearing a ridiculous suit and sporting a ridiculous car, pulls into a driveway of a mansion so ridiculously ugly-ass-retro, it can mean only one thing: Joel Schumacher is directing. And he is. When the four villains arrive, we get a potluck of dysfunctional hilarity: Mommy issues, sibling rivalry, a crush on the Mrs., missed meds, steroidal rage, and a meth addict with a ball gown fetish. Cage and Kidman are so lacking in chemistry, they can’t even fake a miserable marriage. It’s not shocking to see Cage starring in junk, but one wonders if all the onscreen crying by Kidman – in a weak role -- isn’t really her mourning a wayward career. D+

Windtalkers (2002)

John Woo’s “Windtalkers” is sold as a never-before-told chronicle of Marine-trained Navajos who used a code based on their language to communicate military ops over radio during World War II. Naturally, this being a Hollywood drama, “Windtalkers” actually follows a white guy (Nicolas Cage) as he struggles with war wounds of body and soul, and relegates the persons of color (Adam Beach and Roger Willie) to supporting bits, and most shockingly their Navajo-spoken subtitled-in-English almost mute. Yes, battles are staged with absolute chaos and one can feel the heat of explosions and spent cannon shells, but war flick clichés abound, from campfire sessions to the devoted nurse to the nasty bigot who will have a change of heart. Beer bong alert: A serious drinking game can be made of Woo’s trademark slow-mo action shots. There’s a great story buried here, one that tackles the ironies of a people once hunted and killed by and subjected to white American rule, now fighting for that very nation with their lives. But this ain’t it. Not unless Cage -- playing a ridiculous Rambo killing machine with perfect aim -- is part Native American. C-

Season of the Witch (2011)

Film critics threw darts at the Nicolas-Cage-as-a-Crusader flick “Season of the Witch” because it lacked historical accuracy, an odd complaint since they were watching Nicolas Cage play a Crusader. Did they miss the title? Cage, so good in “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” is puffy and disinterested as Behman of Bleibruck, a warrior for God who unwittingly massacres women and children, decides that’s wrong, and goes AWOL. Yep, pure Cage Shit Flick. For reasons too tiring to explain, he and his absolutely platonic best pal (Ron Perlman) find themselves playing guard to a woman (Claire Foy) accused not just of being a witch, but of creating the Black Plague. “Will she get a fair trial?” Behman asks. The church leaders nod, “Yep.” And he believes them! From there, it’s werewolves, murder, and Foy making goofy eyes with blue ambient light under her face. The special effects are 1980s bad. Perlman, good actor, looks like he's in hell, boy. Hanged and drowned, this "Witch" isn't coming back. Cage continues his shit streak. C-

The Wicker Man (1973 and 2006)

A police officer arrives at a remote island, searching for a missing tween girl and finds himself a bit lost and well out-numbered amongst pagan followers of an isolated, almost deranged cult. Nothing goes well, at least for the noble policeman.

The 1973 original is a true cult film – insanely weird and scratchy, especially during a musical scene where actress Britt Ekland sings a seductive tune while throwing herself against walls of a bedroom, whilst naked, as the chaste, self-proclaimed Christian police officer Neil Howie (Edward Woodward) practically flagellates himself in the next room. Seriously demented stuff. Howie huffs and puffs, and tears the small Scottish isle apart, looking for the lost girl, and screaming phlegm at the sexually provocative, Earth-worshipping cultists, saving his deepest ire for the group’s kilt-wearing leader, played by Christopher Lee. As Howie digs into his investigation, he digs his own grave: The man never seems to recognize that he essentially is alone on the island. With no help. The ending is horrific, ironic and strangely – against the grain of the rest of the movie – heroic. It’s a shame this “Wicker Man” seems to have been slashed in the editing room, as we know nothing about Howie’s mainland life. Director Robin Hardy has made a doozey of a film, for sure, where even the cherub-faced grade school girls and smiling old ladies can’t be trusted. A wonderfully offensive trip of a film. A-

What can we say about the remake? It stars Nicolas Cage as the policeman, this time on a hunt for the missing daughter of his ex-fiancée (Kate Beahan) who returned to the cultish island where she was born. This is filmmaking made on a dare: How dumb can we go? The answer is deep. Let’s skip over how inept Cage’s cop is -- the man seems not to know where babies come from -- and how ineptly Cage plays him. No, the real brain killer here is how director Neil Labute (“In the Company of Men”) miraculously makes a cinematic island of all-powerful women and enslaved, tongue-less men a place of utter sexless boredom. How hard does one work to pull off such a feat of … limp drama? As well, religion isn't even mentioned here. So no sex, no teeth. Zero reason to exist. If you’ve never seen Cage running around in a bear suit sucker-punching women in the face, then … count yourself lucky. Ellen Burstn's smirk is nice to watch. D-

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009)

Nicolas Cage – the actor of “Wild at Heart” – has been missing for some time, replaced by a flaky, tired and boring stand-in in such garbage fare as “Bangkok Dangerous.” In the police thriller “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” Cage is once again thrillingly alive, electric, giving a high-wire act, and knocking every other player off to the sidelines. He drops out-there dialogue like “To the break of dawn!” with absolute relish, hitting every syllable in the strangest and darkest of ways.

This Werner Herzog-directed flick has nothing to do with Harvey Kietel’s 1992 flick “Bad Lieutenant,” except name and its general outline: A depraved, drug-addled police detective is on a fast train to hell as he investigates a disturbing crime. Here it’s the murder of a New Orleans family of illegal immigrants, apparently over drugs the caretaker was selling.

Cage’s Terence McDonagh is off the bat corrupt, but in a flash of kindness he saves an inmate from drowning in the 2005 Katrina floods. No good deed goes unpunished: Terence injures his back in the rescue. A doctor’s prescription of painkillers leads to hard drugs and so many crimes – blackmail, sexual assault, shakedowns and pointing guns at grannies. Let’s put it this way: Our hero has a “lucky crack pipe.” It’s telling of Terence’s flamed soul that his lowest point in the film is when his call girl lover (Eva Mendes) announces she’s going into rehab.

His back and shoulders hunched like a walking “7” and a gun shoved in his front belt like a calling card of a psychotic Western lawman of about 16, Cage hasn’t been this good in years: All big-eyes tender one minute with a baby and raging crazy the next, even scaring hardened gangsters. Cage’s eyes are glaring mad, and I’m not sure how he does it. I’m not sure I want to know. But the actor last seen in, I swear, 1997’s “Face/Off” is back. (For now. He is doing a “Ghost Rider 2” after all, a bunch of other garbage, too, God help us.)

This Herzog tale is dark as hell, grisly violent, and strange – David Lynch strange – but it’s also wickedly funny. Terence hallucinates creeping spying lizards, and as the film reaches its climax – well, let’s say, I’m not quite certain reality is all there. The ending, actually, is quite hysterical, if you can get past the horrible acts Terence commits. This might be a difficult film for some to stomach. I dug it. A brimstone comedy from hell. And the most exciting big-screen police thriller I’ve seen in ages, good news for a genre that has played it as safe as an episode of “Law & Order” for too long. New Orleans has never, to my knowledge, been this gritty onscreen before. This ain’t Bourbon Street fun and partying. It’s a third world country, where signs of mass death from a deadly storm are marked – literally – on nearly every home. A-

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (2010)

I dreaded “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” The previews looked terrible: Nicolas Cage as a sorcerer? The only thing he’s been able to conjure up for the past 10 years is crap movies, save a wicked role in “Kick-Ass.” But here’s the deal, this film, from the folks who gave us the “National Treasure” films, ain’t half bad. Don’t get me started on the silly plot schematics. Look far away from the plot. See, this has a magical Disney ’70s vibe to it, mixed in with favorite ’80s kid’s fare such as “Young Sherlock Holmes.” Its goofiness is its charm. The “Apprentice” is college geek David, a meganerd with the voice of a miniature Gilbert Gottfried, who is deemed by Cage’s magic dude to be Merlin’s long-awaited successor. David is played by Jay Baruchel (“Tropic Thunder”) in a performance so hilarious one is never sure if our hero will save the world or destroy it just getting his shoes on. Cage looks like a guy you want to walk waaay around at Times Square at midnight. He wisely abdicates the film to Barachel. Yes, there are magical walking mops. This is Disney. Bonus points: The world’s end begins at Wall Street. B-

Bangkok Dangerous (2008)

With slicked back greasy hair and an ashen face so void of any expression, you're not quite sure he's even alive, Nicolas Cage barely sleepwalks his way through the achingly awful "Bangkok Dangerous." He's a zombie. In need of sugar. Or a new career path. This fro m the man of "Raising Arizona" and "Wild at Heart." Sad.

A 2008 action remake from The Bang Brothers, "Dangerous" follows an expert American assassin named Joe (Cage) who travels the world nailing people for hire. Why? Because they are "very bad." Or so he's told. After a hit at a Prague police station, Joe ends up in Bangkok for one last job (of course) as he pops four targets for one big pay out. Despite his own rules, the ice-cold killer soon plays teacher to a newly-hired assistant (Shahkrit Yamnarm) and boyfriend to a deaf pharmacist (Charlie Young), while (of course) discovering his conscious.

It's hard to pinpoint all the ways this dud film goes wrong. Maybe it's the fact that although Joe claims to never leave anything behind at a kill scene, he always is gloveless. Or that he goes on one mission in a crowded river marketplace in broad daylight and is stunned to learn that tourists are there -- with cameras! Or that the first mission in Prague requires police to bring a vital suspect into an interrogation room with giant bay windows. Also Cage's stunt double has far shorter hair, weighs quite a bit more and looks nothing like Cage.

The film is miserably scripted, shot, edited and acted to the point of pain. Joe's date with the deaf mute, a shamefully written role for any woman or deaf person, has to be the worst film scene in years, and not just because the actors have zero chemistry. Looking constipated and, I kid you not, stoned, Cage as Joe, stammers his way through the meal, stunned at the spicy food. "That's hot, that's real hot," he keeps on saying, bringing to mind a certain hotel heiress with the IQ of a deflated basketball.

But it's fitting. At this point even Paris Hilton's film career looks more promising than that of Cage. His career ended years ago, he just hasn't been told. Hands down one of the worst of 2008. Where's the Cage of long ago? F

Raising Arizona (1987)

Of the Coen Brothers' zany "doofus" comedies, "Raising Arizona" remains the funniest. (I always prefer their darker fare.) There are some stand out moments in this film about a ne'er do well repeat offender (Nicolas Cage) who falls for the jailer (Holly Hunter) who takes his mug shot time and time again after a series of arrests. The hi-jinks kick into gear when the barren couple hatches a plan to kidnap one of five sons born to wealthy furniture salesman (Trey Wilson, stealing the show) named Nathan Arizona. This romp has some classic moments: 1) The kidnapping scene in which Cage juggles five toddlers is a highlight in the actor's spotty career, and 2) The shot of poor Nathan Jr. left sitting in his baby seat in the middle of a highway is priceless. (This is a Coens film, and not for the faint of moral.) The plot relies much on dumb Midwesterners doing dumb stuff, and there's little depth, but "Arizona" is loose, fast and perfectly strange. A-