Nicolas Cage’s Most Iconic ‘90s Action Movie is About to Hit Hulu

Nicolas Cage might have the most diverse career of any actor in Hollywood. From his earliest acting role in a variety show pilot that was never picked up to series in 1981 to his upcoming Spider-Noir, there’s virtually no genre Cage hasn’t worked in and, more than that, he has the critical acclaim to go with it with multiple Academy Award nominations, too. But the 1990s were a particularly great time for the actor, firmly establishing him as an action star and now, one of his most iconic action projects from that era is about to hit Hulu.

Hitting Hulu on May 1st is the 1997 classic Con Air. Directed by Simon West and starring John Malkovich and John Cusack alongside Cage, the film is a wild prison break story that just so happens to take place at 10,000 feet — aka, on board a Justice Prisoner Air Transport plane nicknamed “Con Air”. The movie also features Steve Buscemi, Ving Rhames, Colm Meaney, Monica Potter, Dave Chappelle, and Danny Trejo and while it received mixed reviews from critics, it was a box office hit that remains a cult classic today — and it even got Academy Award nominations for best sound and best original song.

Read Next

An Unfinished Sci-Fi Movie Franchise Could Finally Be Saved Thanks to New Release That Rewrites the Original Story

Con Air Is Pure ‘90s Blockbuster Cheese (And That’s Why It’s Great)

There’s no other way to describe Con Air but delightfully cheesy on a blockbuster scale. It’s packed with almost cringeworthy dialogue and story juxtaposed against truly epic big-budget action sequences and visual effects. The film’s brutal fight scenes in particular are incredible and there are so many explosions (which should come as no surprise since Jerry Bruckheimer is one of the film’s producers.) The film’s premise is also a little on the cheese side, with Cage playing former Army Ranger Cameron Poe who had been convicted of involuntary manslaughter after killing a man in self-defense at a bar. After serving his eight-year sentence, Poe is paroled on his way home to his family on “Con Air” when things go awry when other inmates on the transport attempt to hijack the flight and escape.

But while Con Air is very of the 1990s, that’s also really what makes it great. The action and story are all very stylized and so interconnected that you can’t have one without the other. There’s also nothing quite like the fantastic use of slow-motion during some of the truly epic explosions. Cage’s performance is also top tier despite the bonkers nature of the movie and when you put all of those things together, you have a weirdly great movie that might not be something you’d see today, but still holds its own, which is why its popularity endures.

It’s also one of two incredibly iconic action films that Cage was in in 1997. That’s the year Face/Off also opened in theaters and, like Con Air, Face/Off is absurd with intense, fantastic action and it has also stood the test of time. You can catch that movie currently streaming on Peacock while you wait for Con Air’s arrival on Hulu in May.

What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!