Cage started his career in smaller, quirkier roles. In 1987 he starred in the Coen brothers' Raising Arizona as a petty crook who kidnaps the youngest of a wealthy furniture store owner's quintuplets to help lift his barren wife's depression. Years later, NBC's My Name Is Earl would rip this entire movie off, but Jason Lee never came close to Cage's portrayal of H.I. McDunnough, a stupid, bumbling, yet affable and endearing husband who backs himself into every corner of every room of the trailer that is his life. Apparently, Cage modeled his performance after none other than slapstick legend Wile E. Coyote, a fact alone that is evidence that Cage as an actor exists on a different plane than most others.
It was around this time that Cage was in serious talks to play Superman in Tim Burton's Superman Lives. Anyone who knows anything about this movie should agree that the fact that this project was aborted was for the good of all mankind. All accounts paint producer Jon Peters as a tyrannical, talentless hack not to mention a complete asshole. Tim Burton (whose gothic style fit the Batman franchise to a tee) was a poor fit on a Superman vehicle. Recently revealed production and costume designs indicate that he was planning a gaudy departure from the well-known character. Lastly, Nicolas Cage as Superman?
So yes, Nicolas Cage has obviously made bad choices and he's made bad movies. A whole bunch of them. Sometimes several in a row. After the cheesy City of Angels he made the stupid Snake Eyes, and then went on to the gross 8 mm. But of course 8 mm sucked, it was directed by Joel Schumacher, who definitely has a higher ratio of stinkers than Cage. After those three he went on to make Face Off with John Travolta, which was decent. If you ask me Travolta and his body of work is a million times worse. But for some reason Nicolas Cage has become this cultural go-to joke of an actor, even though his body of work as a whole defies this label. The argument for him being one of the most talented actors of the past ten years could start and end with his portrayal of twin brothers writing the very film in which they are being watched in Spike Jonze's Adaptation, but for the sake of argument let's throw in Andrew Niccol's Lord of War, Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans and Matthew Vaughn's Kick-Ass, among others.
Nicolas Cage makes three kinds of movies: 1) Laughably shitty (usually action movies or Disney paycheques), 2) Middle of the Road, slightly successful fare that not too many people see (The Weather Man, Matchstick Men), and 3) Pure Nicolas Cage gold. When it comes to acting, Cage will throw anything at the wall, and when it sticks it's indelible. His biggest fault is his biggest strength: he trusts his directors completely. If his director is talentless, or more crucially lacks a sense of humour, then Cage is the one left to shoulder the castigation, and those instances seem to overshadow his great achievements.
So in summation, I think that for every bad Nicolas Cage flick, there's a so-so Nicolas Cage flick for each of which there's a great Nicolas Cage flick. That's part of what makes him interesting as an actor. Yes, there's the terrible hairpieces and wigs, but there's also the fact that he claims to have invented a new acting technique called Nouveau Shamanism.
But the one fact that makes Nicolas Cage undeniably awesome is that of his secret identity. He was born Nicolas Coppola in 1964, nephew to Hollwood legend Francis Ford Coppola. When he decided to become an actor however, Nicolas decided he wanted to make it on his own merits, and not on his famous name, so he changed it. But where did he get "Cage" from? He borrowed it from Luke Cage, a 1970s Marvel Comics Blaxploitation superhero who went by the name Power Man and dressed like this:
