“Was that movie as terrible as I remember it?” Day 3: Face-Off

Face-Off (1997)

Directed by John Woo

Starring: Nicolas Cage, John Travolta, Joan Allen, Gina Gershon

There’s a scene in the classic movie “What About Bob?” where Dr. Leo Marvin asks the titular Bob Wiley why his marriage ended. Bobs reasoning is that “There are two types of people in this world: Those who love Neil Diamond and those who don’t. My ex-wife loved him.” I would say I almost agree with Bob, however I think it’s more true that the two types of people in this world are people who love Nicolas Cage and those who don’t. I’ve always been a member of the former group who loves all things Nicolas Cage, but for some reason, I hated Face-Off, which in the opinion of critics everywhere was one of his best movies (RottenTomatoes.com which is a website that gives each movie a percentage score based on the reviews given by critics rate it as Cage’s 2nd best movie). As is the case with most of these movies I’m watching for a second time, I don’t quite remember why I didn’t like it, but I just remember not liking it. And, for the first time since I started doing this on Sunday, I still can’t tell you why I didn’t like this movie, because it was a whole heck of a lot of fun. It was John Travolta at his best, Nicolas Cage at his craziest, and classic John Woo with all of his slow motion, birds and opera music working together perfectly. Sure the premise is absolutely ridiculous, like totally insane ridiculous, but who cares when it’s so much fun. So after day 3, my mind has officially been changed once. Face-Off is a crazy fun movie.

Tomorrow: Deep Impact (If my wife doesn’t have a baby that is)