Willy’s Wonderland (2021)

Directed by Kevin Lewis. Starring Nicolas Cage, Emily Tosta, Beth Grant, Ric Reitz, Chris Warner, David Sheftell, Kai Kadlec, Terayle Hill, Caylee Cowan, Jonathan Mercedes, Christian Del Grosso.

Bald-faced gimmick alert: Nicolas Cage doesn’t utter a single word over the course of this entire movie. Who cares alert: he spends most of the film trapped inside a dilapidated family fun center battling renegade animatronic mascots possessed by the souls of psychotic killers. A preposterous junk movie, self-aware and tongue-in-cheek, made with more skill and style than one is likely to expect, although a handful of creative camera shots can’t fully redeem choppy close-quarters choreography and cutting. Padded out by the arrival of a pack of twenty-somethings who are there to torch the joint (and may as well have the word “fodder” tattooed across their foreheads), the filmmakers are unable to sustain its outrageous premise to the end, but Cage takes a break toward the end to improvise a weird little “Vogue”-ish dance while playing pinball to remind everyone who he is, and this is the kind of out-there project that really needs Cage to be Cage. Director Lewis and writer G. O. Parsons swear off being inspired by the very similar Five Nights at Freddy’s video game series. Cage also co-produced.

59/100