I thought I’d give you guys a break from Oscar Winner Nicolas Cage and introduce a new flavour: Val Kilmer. I don’t really care for Val, to be honest. He kinda reminds me of Billy Ray Cyrus and that makes me uncomfortable.
I was looking for things to watch on VOD and came across The Thaw. They gave it 2.5 stars, which is kinda hard to judge because I am pretty sure they also gave a movie I like to refer to as Stock Footage of a Bear like, two stars. Maybe only one, I don’t know, I can’t remember. But it seemed dodgy enough a score that it might be hilarious but not so dodgy that it would be the worst ever.
Basically Val Kilmer is a man of science living in the Arctic, learning about ecology and things, mostly about global warming. Some students are on their way to help him, and for reasons that are too boring to talk about his daughter ends up coming, too, even though he doesn’t want her to. (BTW: Him not wanting her to come to protect her makes zero sense by the end of the movie because he is kinda rude to her actually.)
So Val has discovered a woolly mammoth that is thawing in the tundra and basically it is infested with some sort of weirdo bug/parasite thing and he and his science buddies get so infected. Then the students show up and of course one is afraid of bugs so many that he gets crazy like the time in 28 Days Later when you learned that the zombie apocalypse is more terrifying because of how humans react to things and not because of braaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnns.
So people get infected, they try to escape and deal with the emotional trauma of having bugs inside them. One dude even goes as far as attempting to chop off his own arm after he discovers they have laid eggs inside him (don’t worry, he eventually gets help as it is kinda hard to chop your own arm off.)
Long story short it turns out to be all a ploy by Val to infect the planet with this weird thing so that people will care about global warming. My question is how are people gonna care about global warming when they are barfing weird goo and having bugs crawling out of their skin? When that kind of thing is happening to you I think there are more pressing matters.
I actually didn’t hate this movie, but I will warn you: if you are squeamish in any way, you will probably get really grossed out and also shriek when they do stupid things like attempt to give CPR to a woman who just barfed a greenish brown thick goo. Sick.
I’m not even going to apologize for this. You know how sometimes you pick a thing, like grilled cheese sandwiches, and then you have it for every meal for a week? Right now we are having Nicolas Cage for dinner. Every. Day.
Watch this for 2 minutes, and then watch the English version, because that is what we did with the actual film.
Here is what you need to know: Nicolas Cage is magic. Not only does he do magic tricks, but he can also see the future. But only when it is about him. This is basically the opposite of what most stories about fortune tellers say; you’re not supposed to be able to cheat at cards or win the lottery, but this guy can.
One time he is at the casino, you know, boozing it up, getting some free moneys. Then they’re on to him, so he steals a car and runs away. Of course some uptight cop lady (Julianne Moore, who is really beautiful and really mean) is chasing him because she has figured out he can see the future and she wants him to help her save the world from the impending doom of a nuclear explosion. How noble.
Except he doesn’t wanna, because he’s spent his whole life being weird and he just wants to go raise chickens with Jessica Biel. I hear ya, Nic. That is a good aspiration in life.
Because he can see the future he fandangles a way into Jessica’s life (and, thusly, pants) except that cop she is super tricky and also good at guns.
Here is where things get weird because the whole point of the future, Nic tells us, is that it changes every time you look at it. Because you looked at it. (ok?)
So at first you get kinda used to the whole seeing the future part, and you know when it is happening and then BAM all of the sudden it is the end of the movie and a bunch of stuff that just happened didn’t actually happen because it was just multiple Nic Cage going through every possible outcome and wow that takes a long time actually.
I think probably you should watch this movie anyway because it was pretty good and there is an awkwardly hilarious part in the beginning where Nic Cage’s actual wife is in it and he is like “har har you old dog” to her fake actor husband but you know really he is har har-ing himself because he is old enough to be my dad and she is younger than Maine.
Ok you guys, I promise I will not watch Nicolas Cage movies every time but I couldn’t resist. I’ve wanted to see for myself just how terrible this movie is for a while.
So Nic Cage is a cop who one time accidentally caused a car to get smashed because he pulled it over when a little girl dropped her doll out the door. Then a truck ran it over and the girl and her mom totally got exploded.
This gives him the crazy (naturally), and things get more crazy when he gets a letter from his ex-fiance about how her daughter got stolen and can he please help her despite the fact that he is from California and she lives on some crazy pants island in Washington (actually Saturna island for reals) and that is totally outside his, what do they call it, district? jurasdiction? One of those.
So of course he goes because let’s face it, if you had an ex lover be all omg come help and you were still caught up in loving them you would go. You would maybe even go if you didn’t love them but just wanted to see if they got really ugly in the time since they left you. But, that being said, I think if you had a serious bee allergy and they lived in bee town you might re-think it. Nic Cage does not. He just brings some epi pens. Anyway.
So he goes and of course everyone on the island is completely bat-shit insane and they are like “Who is this Rowan girl you speak of?” like they’ve never seen this girl but they clearly have. Oh P.S. the girl is his daughter, are you so surprised?!
So yeah Nic Cage is on this island, being kinda smug and having no personality and generally being Nic Cage, and everyone else is made of the crazy. And of course you sit there trying to figure out what the twist is. I am really not so sure why they kept doing flashbacks to the time that girl and her mom died in the car except maybe to show you how he is not over it and how it has made him crazy also.
There is some face punching and some Nic Cage yelling and in the end it turns out it was all a trick so this island of weirdo bee worshiping ladies can sacrifice him to improve their honey crop. You will guess this part early on.
It was kinda frustrating because it seemed like it had potential to be ok but then was just… really, really dumb.
There, now you have seen all the best parts and you don’t have to waste 100 minutes on the movie.
