Odd swing-and-a-miss featuring a miscast Nic Cage as a dorky college professor who begins turning up in millions of people's dreams around the world, bringing him unwanted fame. Starts out plenty entertainingly—of course Nic Cage is always fun to watch even when he's not quite a fit for the role, and certainly a unique idea for a movie.
But about two thirds of the way through, the story just kind of powers down, and the movie turns into simply an excuse to make him a punching bag for no clear reason and with no clear resolution. It's as if the writers had a great idea, but no clue about how to turn it into a story with a rewarding ending. And an odd deus ex machina right near the ending makes it look like some sort of other writing team was called in to try and quickly fix things, as new ideas are introduced without adequate explanation (by way of showing them in an out-of-the-blue TV commercial), while several loose threads are simply left unresolved. Fridge logic abounds.
Add to the faltering narrative his increasing awkward misfortune, and the contrived way even his family refuses to show any sympathy for him, and what started out as a fun movie actually becomes kind of an unpleasant watch. They pile on more and more cringey moments until that's all the movie is, and it becomes a bit like a parody of a Sartre novel, what they put this guy through. Not sure why we're supposed to be moved by his declarations of love for a wife whose lack of support for him has bordered on contempt for most of the movie.
The people who thought Being John Malkovich was brilliant probably think this is, too, for the incredibly off-kilter idea. Unfortunately, for me, it's about storytelling, and this one just kind of cops out on that about 2/3 of the way through.
It's a shame, because, for maybe the first half, it was pretty fun.
Although, loose the simmering intensity if you want to play a nerd, Nic.
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