Nicolas Cage salvages the excessive ‘Renfield’

A Nicolas Cage performance exists on its own spectrum of strange to spectacular. His most ardent fans (including this writer) appreciate all facets of the Cage experience. Nobody goes bonkers quite like him, but the Oscar winner is also more than capable of making small, more nuanced choices.

His portrayal of Count Dracula in the horror-action-comedy “Renfield” allows Cage to play on both sides of the spectrum. At the start of the film, while buried under heavy prosthetics, the wild-and-crazy Cage serves as a delightful comic anchor to the film’s dopey storytelling choices.

Then, once Dracula reaches full strength (and Cage appears on screen sans prosthetics but with pasty skin and razorblade teeth), the actor embraces the more terrifying and magnetic aspects that’s made the character so iconic since its inception. Cage is funny as Dracula; then Cage proves he’s just as good at playing the bestial side as any other before him.

If only “Renfield” wasn’t about Renfield. Cage’s Dracula intentionally serves as a foil to the titular sidekick, here played by Nicolas Hoult (a strong actor with a diverse range himself — see “Mad Max: Fury Road” vs. last year’s “The Menu”). Set mostly in the modern world, Renfield has grown tired of the centuries of servitude, which often involved collecting human victims for Dracula’s exhausting eating habits. Applying what he’s learned from a co-dependency support group, Renfield wishes to break free of the Count’s unrelenting rule and instead use his own supernatural powers for good.

It’s an undeniably fun premise, and the movie understands its comedic roots enough to cast Awkwafina and Ben Schwartz in the film’s next two largest roles. Awkwafina plays a traffic cop working against a corrupt police force to take down a crime syndicate. Schwartz plays the mouthy, cowardly prince to that criminal empire, and before long, Renfield’s newfound love of do-gooding runs him up against the mob.

The mobster subplot of “Renfield” ultimately becomes the A-plot, with Dracula eventually seeking an alliance with the criminals once he realizes he can’t rely on his servant anymore. It’s an awkward fit for the more supernatural elements of the film, and, on top of it all, director Chris McKay (“The Tomorrow War,” “The Lego Batman Movie”) fills the screen with a series of relentlessly edited fight sequences and CGI-assisted gore gags. This movie loves severed limbs and exploding heads, all in the name of comedy, but it becomes uninspired and repetitive quickly.

Hoult maintains the necessary charm as Renfield tries to use his murdering ways for good, though he doesn’t muster much chemistry with Awkwafina, a usually reliable comic presence stuck in an undercooked role.

Thank goodness for Cage, who sparks the movie with life every time he appears. It’s understandable for the filmmakers to think the actor’s “crazy Dracula” is best in smaller doses, but once Cage goes into menacing mode, the movie around him seems unnecessary. It’d be more interesting to watch a psychological drama where Dracula and the rest of the cast are locked in a room together… no overblown fight sequences or exploding heads. Just a manipulative monster toying with his potential victims.

So while “Renfield” isn’t much of a movie, it serves as another late period demonstration of the genius (yes, genius) that is Nicolas Cage. Of a 90-minute movie, you must tolerate the hour or so where he doesn’t appear.

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Tyler Wilson is a member of the International Press Academy and has been writing about movies for Inland Northwest publications since 2000, including a regular column in The Press since 2006. He can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com.