Nicolas Cage: Willy’s Wonderland (Review)

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

PLOT: A silent drifter (Nicolas Cage) is forced to spend the night working at an abandoned family restaurant named “Willy’s Wonderland”. Over the course of the evening, he’s hunted by the place’s animatronic characters, but he proves to be more than up to the task of dealing with these evil creatures.

REVIEW: What if Nicolas Cage was trapped overnight at Chuck E. Cheese, and the characters hunted him for sport? That’s the premise of Willy’s Wonderland, with a hefty dose of indie video game Five Nights At Freddy’s thrown in for good measure. It’s a breezy, eighty-five minute B-movie that ranks as one of the better recent Nicolas Cage vehicles. It’s a shame this didn’t come out in a non-COVID 19 world as it would have made for a great midnight movie.

As I mentioned in my Prisoners of the Ghostland review, Cage’s movies these days can be broken up into two categories. There are the assembly line VOD movies like 211 or The Humanity Bureau, and then there are the wacky genre projects like Mandy, Color Out of Space and now Willy’s Wonderland that allow Cage to work at his unhinged best. While the movie itself is unexceptional at times, with the low-budget necessitating repetitive action scenes and occasionally dodgy CGI, our star’s performance is interesting throughout.

Notably, the film calls upon Cage to be completely silent throughout. Known for his “way with words”, it's fascinating to see him play the entire movie in silent pantomime. He seems to be having the time of his life as the stone-faced, almost Buster Keaton-esque anti-hero facing off with all of those killer animatronics. What’s cool is that his unnamed character is non-plussed by what’s going on. Early in the film, he makes a deal to clean Willy’s Wonderland in exchange for having his car fixed, and come hell or high water he’s gonna live up to the end of his bargain.

Whenever he’s attacked by one of the evil puppets, Cage gruesomely murders them (with the puppets spewing gallons of black blood), but then diligently cleans the mess up, continuing his work as if nothing ever happened. Where the movie suffers is in an unnecessary B-plot that tries to get into the mythology behind Willy’s Wonderland, introducing the small-town teens, including Emily Tosta's Liv, who explains the curse to Cage’s thoroughly uninterested character.

This attempt to open the story up seems misguided. It felt like Tosta and her friends were added for youth appeal and to drive up the body count, but any time away from Cage seems like a waste. Of the supporting cast, only genre stalwart Beth Grant (cast against type as a sheriff) makes a big impression.

Through and through, this is Cage’s show, and it's him at his unhinged best. What’s especially funny is how disinteresting he seems in the teens that are getting slaughtered, viewing them as a nuisance more than anything. At one point, he’s about to defend one when his watch timer goes off telling him it’s his break, so he heads off to guzzle some energy drinks and play pinball. It’s as if to him saving the teens, fighting the creatures, and cleaning the restaurant are all just part of the same job he agreed to do, and he’ll do it – but he wants his regular workday breaks!

Of course, it doesn’t take itself seriously for a minute, nor should it. While a bigger budget and a tighter focus on Cage might have elevated it to cult classic status, director Kevin Lewis has still made a fun horror-comedy. I especially liked the fun synth soundtrack by composer Émoi, who also sings the awesome power-pop theme song, appropriately titled “Willy’s Wonderland”. While I don’t think this is up to par with later Cage highlights like Mandy, it’s a fun little ride worth checking out.

Willy's Wonderland

AVERAGE

6

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