Gone in 60 Seconds (2000)

Despite my devotion to 2017 as the year I work through the Nicolas Cage back catalogue, I somehow managed to completely forget the entire experience of watching this movie.

That’s not to say it’s a bad movie - it is arguably a more complete cinematic experience than something like Next - but...it's not great.  When I refer to it being a "complete experience", I'll give credit to its casting and action sequences and even the plotting, but it all adds up to a movie that takes itself relatively seriously makes it a lot less fun than some in the Cage oeuvre. 

This is Cage at his most restrained, acting like a normal person for 90% of the movie. The most bizarre thing about this movie that I could spot was a villain who was also a carpenter (a long-locked Christopher Eccleston). There's one or two lighter moments amongst the gritter, overly self-serious moments that tend to plague a lot of car-based action movies, and the imbalance overwhelmed everything for me.

My silly car flicks of choice are the inarguably cartoonish Fast and Furious movies, so sans the lure of The Rock, I found this difficult to get into. The whole “now he has to return to car theft and steal 50 cars!” didn’t feel that engaging, but I know it’s exactly some people’s medicine. My father, for example, loves this movie. I'm automatically inclined to dislike it on that basis alone.

Rating: 2.5/10 - Not my thing, but I appreciate its place in film as a whole. Weirdly paced and not particular compelling. We did spend a chunk of it brainstorming choose-your-own-adventure erotica, which was probably the best part of it for me. Maybe I should drop everything and move into that as a business venture. Whaddaya say, Mills and Boone?