Stating that comic book movies (CBMs) are a passing fad and will soon begin falling in popularity until they are no longer relevant seems to have become trendy lately. This is usually a statement thrown around by hyper-adults who think comic books are a childish habit and have no place in the ‘grown up’ art scene that is cinema.
Earlier this week, Mathew Fox (Lost, Speed Racer) went on record in an interview with Collider to say that comic book movies will be “exhausted pretty soon.”
When the initial news hit the internet that Sony would no long keep the money train going with Sam Raimi but instead reboot the Spider-Man movie series fan boys went ballistic! If we were in Victorian times I pretty sure they would rolled out the guillotine at the time. As time went on and a director and star were chosen the madness escalated and it appeared that fans had forgotten about the flaws of the Raimi films. Were we so clouded by our sheer hatred for change that we couldn’t even give these new guys a chance? “Its to soon,” was the battle cry of the anti-Spidey-reboot brigade. However, at the same time they enjoyed in mass the reboot of Batman by Christopher Nolan. Why wasn’t it too soon for that franchise to get a reboot? The difference between reboot time frames was only 3 years, surely not enough for the internet fan boys to lose their collective minds over, right?
Over the past few years my view of Nicolas Cage has changed dramatically. I was a casual fan of some of his work, but hated even more of it. His catalog of movies has not been the best. Cage started his career off in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and it was off to the races ever since. His rise has been steady since the early 80s. Looking over his career we can see he averages about 4 movies a year these days. For a name worthy actor this is a good and steady body of work. Often the complaint about Cage is his lack of reasonable acting. Sometimes there is screaming or whispering for no apparent reason. The word overacting is often used to describe roles in which he is involved. I don’t disagree at all with these observations. However, I think there might be something that people are missing. Allow me to propose my theory: Nicholas Cage is the greatest troll of all time. For those of you who don’t know, a troll is someone who purposefully pretends to be one way to attract controversy. They are not genuine in their behavior, but rather, attempting to gain a certain response out of the audience.