The Beige Volvo Trilogy

What's that mean? The Beige Volvo Trilogy?  It's a little early to be drinking Bilbo!  Hear me out.  The Beige Volvo Trilogy is a series of Nicolas Cage films from the nineties.  There are spoilers for Con Air, Face/Off, and The Rock ahead...

The Rock, Face/Off, and Con Air make up the Beige Volvo Trilogy

For those that don't know, Nicolas Cage is an American actor that has starred in some really good films like National Treasure and some absolutely horrible films like Left Behind.  In the mid to late nineties, he starred in three action packed crapfests back to back to back.  That's harsh.  They're not terrible films.  They are entertaining but contain some pretty ludicrous plot points, terrible writing, and, well, Nic Cage.

Welcome to The Rock

Let's start in 1996 with The Rock.  A Beatles obsessed chemist and James Bond must sneak into Alcatraz when a rogue group of military men, led by Ed Harris, threaten a nerve gas attack against San Francisco.  I am still not sure why they don't just bomb the island, but that's a whole different blog.  I saw this film in the theater with my father.  It was the first R rated movie I ever saw with him.  It was action packed and featured some fantastic actors and Nic Cage.  It shares some ties with the James Bond series and took place at a location I had actually been to. The Rock gave us such gems as: "Your 'best'! Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen." and "Look, I'm just a biochemist. Most of the time, I work in a little glass jar and lead a very uneventful life. I drive a Volvo, a beige one. But what I'm dealing with here is one of the most deadly substances the earth has ever known, so what say you cut me some FRIGGIN' SLACK?"

Did you catch that?  A Beige Volvo. Just a mention.  A seemingly meaningless mention.

Thank you for flying Con Air

In 1997, the sophomore addition is Con Air. It's definitely the most believable of the trilogy as far as crazy plots go but it features one of the worst accents in cinematic history. A former U.S. Ranger Cameron Poe  that went to jail for kicking some guys ass is finally paroled and for some reason, travels on a plane that basically carries every single bad guy on the planet.  Gee, I wonder what goes wrong.  The film features some fantastic acting from the likes of John Malkovich and Steve Buscemi.  Seriously fantastic, but I cannot get past the Nic Cage accent in this one.  It's just terrible.  Any way, you may remember great lines like  "Define irony. Bunch of idiots dancing on a plane to a song made famous by a band that died in a plane crash." while "Sweet Home Alabama" plays in the background or "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. I have the only gun on board. Welcome to Con Air."

At some point in the film, a very dead con is thrown out of the plane and lands on, you guessed it, a beige Volvo. No big deal, right?

I want to take his Face/Off

The conclusion of the trilogy adds John Travolta to the mix in the absolutely ludicrous Face/Off. The premise is that a con and an FBI guy have been longtime enemies.  The con plants a bomb and then gets put in a coma.  The FBI guys has to find out where the bomb is and the ONLY way to do that is to swap faces with the con so he can pose as the con in the criminal underworld.  Here's the thing, he can only tell 3 people of this plan.  Only 3 people know that he is having this magical surgery that alters his face, body, hairlines, voice, and, well, everything but his blood type.  While the FBI agent, posing as the con, is in prison getting the info needed, the con wakes up.  Shocker!  He forces the doctor to make him into the FBI agent.  It's Freaky Friday with guns. The standard dialogue is "I want to take his face... off. Eyes, nose, skin, teeth. It's coming off." and "I don't know what I hate wearing worse: your face or your body. I mean I enjoy *boning* your wife, but let's face it, we both like it better the other way, yes? So why don't we trade back."

Eventually, the FBI agent, posing as the con, escapes prison and he does so in a, yup, beige Volvo.

The Beige Volvo Trilogy

Hence the birth of the Beige Volvo trilogy. It's just a cute little inside joke from Nicolas Cage to you.  I know I say a lot of terrible things about him but, at the end of the day, his films are mostly entertaining and this particular trilogy is always worth a watch.  They aren't winning Oscars but they are definitely great time killers on a Sunday afternoon.