In the past 12 years Nicolas Cage has gone from an offbeat treasure, and one of my favorite actors, to a guy who makes bad movies and once in a while delivers the goods. I'm not sure you lose talent as an actor, but I do think you can lose talent in picking projects, and I definitely feel your priorities as an actor can change with success.

I remember when he took on the role of Little Junior in Kiss of Death. It was like, "Whoa! Nic Cage plays a bad-ass toughie!" It was unusual for him to go that route. Then came The Rock where he played an unlikely action hero. That he was unlikely was a joke the movie was very conscious of and it carried him over to Con Air and Face/Off (John Woo's only really good American film).

Memories of that bad Top Gun rip-off, Fire Birds, all but vanished and Nic Cage, the action star, was born. I think as good as he is in some of those movies, we all become the worse for it. Every once in a while, the good, weird, risk-taking Nic Cage will appear. I'm referring to performances like Bringing Out the Dead, Adaptation, Matchstick Men and The Weather Man. But what must we suffer through in between?

My favorite Nicolas Cage is the eccentric Nicolas Cage. I like the Cage of Raising Arizona, in which he gave one of the best comedic performances ever. His hair, his sad eyes, his accent and his deadpan delivery are things of beauty. I also love the man-child and stubborn fool Cage played in Moonstruck. I like the guy who dressed up like Elvis in Honeymoon in Vegas and who ate a cockroach in Vampire's Kiss. Leaving Las Vegas won him the Oscar. He gave a dark, haunting (I still can visualize that scene where he downs a bottle and bugs his eyes out as he tries to control his shakes) performance. But for me it hardly gets any better than his dual role in Adaptation. It's hilarious. He does fantastic, even touching work, in Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman's film, particularly when he performs as Donald.

Hell, I even love the Cage who gives disastrous performances like the one in Peggy Sue Got Married. It's more than 20 years later and nobody really quite knows what to make of Nicolas Cage's brain activity in that thing. It's vintage Cage though. It's risky (and completely ludicrous) stuff.

I'll tell you what I don't like though. I don't like the guy in Con Air. I couldn't stand Cage in this movie. I hated the hair. I hated the drawl that would leave his mouth. And I hated the tired, too-cool attitude of the whole damn enterprise.

I'm so sick of talking about how dumb Ghost Rider is at this point that it's almost not worth bringing up here. Suffice to say, that was a bad decision. Captain Corelli's Mandolin was well intentioned, but it's what we could call "Bad Cage." I almost don't blame the guy for this one. Whoever hired him knew this couldn't turn out well. Cage can be a brilliant actor, but he isn't Meryl Streep. He can do interesting things with his voice (emphasis on "interesting"), but his accent in this movie is so awful it makes the movie -- which is otherwise not horrific -- horrific.

National Treasure, meanwhile, is a seemingly harmless throwaway film. Yet it holds a dark place in my heart because it was the movie where I realized I was maybe kidding myself -- maybe Cage no longer cares after all? It's that sick feeling you get at the pit of your stomach that gets you. I had this feeling when A-Rod came out and admitted he took steroids. Not pleasant.

Yeah, everybody mails it in in that movie, but here's the thing: Cage used to bring something interesting to even his worst films. Snake Eyes, for example, is a really bad movie (no, like, really bad), but I think it's one of his better performances. It's gloriously over the top, fitting in with DePalma's overzealousness for sleaze, yet also manages to be interesting and nuanced. However, Cage's most recent work in National Treasure is just ... empty. Dull. There is no character development there. He really was just cashing a check on this performance.

So which is the real Nicolas Cage? My friends, I don't know what to tell you. Since he went back-to-back with Adaptation and Matchstick Men, this is what he has done:

National Treasure: Bad movie.
Lord of War: Interesting failure.
The Weather Man: Good.
The Ant Bully: I somehow missed this. Um, bad?
World Trade Center: A fine film.
The Wicker Man: Woof.
Ghost Rider: Sigh.
Grindhouse: Cool flick, but gets points deducted for appearing in the worst faux trailer in the movie.
Next: I skipped this one.
National Treasure: Book of Secrets: More bad.
Bangkok Dangerous: Missed it.

Not exactly what you would call stellar. Based on the previews, I'm not so sure Knowing will be a return to form for the actor, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed for both him and director Alex Proyas. These days I hear "Nicolas Cage movie" and cringe. This should not be. I just want to like the guy again.

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Dre writes two times a week for Film.com. Email him!

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