Well, he’s fucking.
Nicolas Cage and his girlfriend are having sex among one thousand burning candles in his extremely flammable rooftop shack to celebrate their pregnancy. She has put her hair in pigtails for the occasion, so Nicolas Cage says, “Oh yeah, pigtails are naughty. Naw-tayyy!!!”
Have either of these people had sex before?
His phone rings, and he picks up.
I feel like in the ’90s people were always answering the phone while they were having sex. I remember watching movies as a kid and thinking, like, three out of four adults were probably secretly having sex when you talked to them on the phone! Honestly, I’m still not sure this isn’t true! It puts me constantly on edge! This is why I only text!
Nic’s boss tells him he has to come in for an emergency gas assignment, so he’s like, “I gotta go!” and runs off the edge of the roof. (I mean, you could just finish having sex—it’ll take like two minutes.)
Back at the government, the government is trying to figure out how exactly they’re supposed to break into Alcatraz when, famously, no one has ever broken out.
Unless…maybe someone HAS! Wow, this is the best plot of any movie!
FBI director James Womack (John Spencer! My president!) is like, “No no no no no no no no no no no no no, HE DOES NOT EXIST!” and the other government guys are like, “Bad news, we know he does exist, and his name is Sean Connery, and he escaped from Alcatraz and he alone knows its secrets, and we know you know he’s moldering in a secret prison right now, James Womack! Go get him!” And James Womack is like, “We can’t risk letting him out. He’s a professional escape artist!” which, respectfully, is kind of the point, sir?
Sean Connery was a British spy who got put in Alcatraz for stealing a microfilm with all of the US government’s dirtiest secrets, such as who shot JFK and what aliens’ butts look like, which is why they hated it so much when he escaped. As soon as they caught him again, they put him in a secret dungeon and pretended he never existed—“This man has no identity, not in the United States or Great Britain, he does not exist”—so he could never tell anyone about the aliens’ butts ever again!!! But now they need him to team up with Nicolas Cage and break INTO Azkaban and save San Francisco. Tell me another way! There isn’t one! Experts say!
They bring Nicolas Cage in to see if he’s the gas king of their dreams, and quiz him on VX gas: “It’s very, very horrible, sir. It’s one of those things we wish we could disinvent.” (That’s what I say about my husband’s socks, right, ladies?) Nic passes the test, so they take him to the interrogation room, where they’re trying to convince Sean Connery to join the team in exchange for a pardon.
Unfortunately, the FBI sent some bozo agent in to persuade Connery, but when Connery tries to tell him a sly fable about why he doesn’t trust the FBI, this guy doesn’t even know who Archimedes is! Dumbass! But Nicolas Cage knows about Archimedes! Behind the one-way glass, in the other room, he starts yelling out the answers like Hermione in Potions. The king put Archimedes in prison! James the First! James the First! Essence of Myrtlap!
Womack perks up, like, “Whoa, this guy does chemical weapons AND he watches the History Channel?!? A double threat!” On a hunch, he sends Cage in there to finish the negotiation. On his way out, the bozo agent tosses Sean Connery a quarter, sarcastically, breaking the first rule of FBI: Never give Sean Connery a quarter! You’ll see why! (It doesn’t really go anywhere, though!)
Connery can sense that Cage is not a bozo, but also not a very good FBI agent. He tells Cage that he will consider the FBI’s offer, but in exchange he wants a schower, a schave, the feel of a schuit, and a schwuite at the Fairmont Hotel Schan Franchishco. Cage says okay, and Connery signs the contract without reading it or even asking what the mission is (DUDE).
When Cage leaves the room, Connery uses his spy skills to quickly turn the quarter into a knife. A GLASS-CUTTING KNIFE! He cuts through the window and scares the shit out of Womack, his nemesis. This does not seem to effect anyone’s enthusiasm about the plan. Let’s go!
Cage is not a field agent—he is more of a laboratory nerd who mostly works with evil dolls—so Womack tells one of the real agents to give Cage his gun. (Really? You couldn’t go back to HQ and get one from the closet?) That agent is like, “A gun? For what? You’re a chemical freak!” which seems like wildly bad teamwork, and Cage goes, “I’m a chemical super-freak, actually,” so credit to that guy for the assist.
We’re at the Fairmont Hotel Schan Franchishco in the penthouse schwuite. Connery is getting a haircut from a gay schtereotype on the balcony while the FBI guys are inside going to town on some room schervisch schandwichesh that Connery ordered to dischtract them.1 Connery seizes the moment to tie a clothesline around Womack’s wrist and dangle him off the balcony, then escape while everyone else is busy rescuing him. Connery’s on the run!
Hairdresser, cowering in terror on the elevator: Okay, I don’t want to know nothin’, I didn’t see you throw that man off the balcony, all I want to know is are you happy with your haircut!
Classic gay person!
Now there’s a car chase. Connery and Cage and the entire FBI absolutely pulverize San Francisco, which they are specifically in town to save. It seems like if you’re Sean Connery, and your whole thing is insisting that you’ve been wrongfully imprisoned by the US government, maybe you should not commit many guilty vehicular homicides the second you have the chance?
