Despite being offered gems in 2023, Nicolas Cage is still saying Yes to anything. No wonder he wants to retire. We are so close to having a Cage renaissance, but he desperately needs an agent who won’t put him in useless shit. The Retirement Plan is that. Useless. It’s a “guy with a particular set of skills” movie, when Cage is introduced as a former heavy who is drawn back in to protect his daughter and granddaughter.I think Cage has already done this Liam Neeson genre before, so I’m not sure why he’s back. And he just protected a child earlier this year in The Old Way. Is he all about protecting kids now>?

The greater crime is that Hulu is the home for this and it doesn’t have audio description. So an action movie where the only point is action is almost entirely lost on us. plus, Cage performances demand description, because he’s always fully committed. Sometimes, too much. He’s a little too goofy at the beginning of this, when he sells the “beach dude” thing he’s going for, but as the action picks up, he sheds that surfer dude mantra, and we start seeing the skills that paid the bills.

I mean, we would, if there was audio description. He’s not the only baffling casting choice here, as Ron Perlman also got sucked into this. I remember when straight to video films had actors no one recognized, or did that one film that one time and their career fell apart. now, they have Oscar winners and nominees. That’s not OK.

I’m not grading this, because it’s an action film with no audio description, so the Unwatchable grade fits it just fine, but I have a feeling my tomatometer score, if I was doing that, would be rotten. Cage had Renfield, playing Dracula, The Flash, where he finally played Superman, and Dream Scenario. Why he chose to also do The Old Way and The Retirement Plan is beyond me.

Final Grade: Unwatchable