Honeymoon in Vegas

1992 romantic comedy

Rating: 11/20

Plot: Nicolas Cage is reluctant to marry but finally decides to because Sarah Jessica Parker looks really good in tight dresses. They fly to Vegas where Sarah Jessica Parker grabs the attention of a professional gambler who decides to try to win her in a poker game. He does, and Nic Cage gets to freak out about it.

Hold on a second. What's the movie with a bunch of Elvises that has Kurt Russell in it? I think I'm getting those two movies confused. I'm not sure if that one has dreams of a protagonist's mother vacuuming naked as an important plot point though.

This is a dopey romantic comedy where it's nearly impossible to buy the romance between the love interests though they do have some comedic chemistry in a few scenes. Cage and Jessica Parker (just Parker?) work well in a screwballish fashion even when the characters don't make a lot of sense or really seem like they share that much history. And there are multiple times when their characters don't make a lot of sense. None of the Freudian mom stuff and Nic's reluctance to marry make much sense, even when they throw in the stuff about how his job further sours him on matrimony. Later, Parker (Jessica Parker?) shows some questionable decision making that, following Cage's desire to play poker rather than see his girlfriend in that bikini, makes it seem like these two should just give up and find somebody else to not be fully invested in. Surprisingly for a romantic comedy, they're not in a lot of scenes together. Sarah Jessica Parker really does look fetching in those tight little dresses, but I always kind of had a thing for her in the early-90's anyway, mostly because I am attracted to women who have three names.

Cage gets multiple opportunities to freak out, and he screams at random people at airports or casinos or wherever better than any other actor in his place could. My favorite Cage moments are usually when he's supposed to be an entirely normal human being but can't quite pull it off. His sing-songy "Yoohoo! Can I get a roo-oom?" at a hotel front desk made me laugh, and there are a few other deliveries and gesticulations that are pretty close to what he's pulling off in Vampire's Kiss.

James Caan looks like an actor who realized this whole thing was a terrible idea halfway through the filming. I realize I'm not supposed to like his character, but for me, it was hard to have any feelings at all about the character. For the bulk of the movie, he seemed like a better option for Sarah Jessica Parker's character than Nicolas Cage, but the screenplay kind of made him artificially nastier a little later in the story.

Peter Boyle has what is perhaps an unfortunate cameo, Pat Morita makes an appearance, and Seymour Cassel gets to chomp on a cigar and wear a ridiculous suit as a poker player named Tony Cataracts. You know who else makes his very first screen appearance in this? Bruno Mars, as a young Elvis impersonator. So that's something.

After a cute animated introduction, this has its moments here and there and is definitely worth watching for Sarah Jessica Parker's skirts and Cage's Cage-ish performance. Otherwise, it's an underwhelming screwball comedy straddling a couple of decades where that's exactly what you'd probably expect.

Spoiler: How many Nicolas Cage movies end with him in a plane over Las Vegas? I can think of two.