If you took Adaptation, put it through the Hollywood blender with a dash of Art House credibility, and slapped it between two slices of Lost in Translation, you would end up with something much like the Weatherman. Nicholas Cage's latest attempt at creating character depth amounts to little more then the equivalent of a two-hour Valium promotion.

Nicholas Cage plays Dave Spritz, a weather reporter for a popular Chicago news station. Professionally, Dave is doing just fine, he makes great money for a job that demands little effort, and he gets his shot at the big time when he lands an audition for the national morning program, Hello America. However, his personal life is in disarray. He still longs to work things out with his ex-wife who thinks he's a useless flake, and he has no real relationship with his kids. His father is a famous writer who once played regular rounds of golf with President Carter, but thinks weather reporting is a joke. And his mother is seemingly non-existent.

Rather then feeling empathy for the protagonist, you just want to punch him in the mouth, ‘cause he's a totally egotistical prick. As for the rest of the characters, Spritz' daughter Shelly, a girl whose tight pants leave her open to a good ribbing from her school chums, is played beautifully by Gemmenne de la Pena. Shelly is the only person I felt anything for in the whole film — no one else was given enough screen time to breath life into the characters.

This snail of a tail has absolutely no climax whatsoever. It's stuck in first gear until the last five minutes of the movie, when it throws it all the way into second. But it's too late; I'm halfway through a bottle of sleeping pills and a 26er of J.D. by that point.

It's obvious that this was an attempt for Cage to regain some of his credibility as an actor. I'm sure the screenplay, which I guess is supposed to be some sort of social commentary on America, sounded like something that would work for that purpose. But work it definitely does not. You can practically hear the director in the back row shouting, “Damn, did you get that? Do you see what we're doing here? That's America, isn't it depressing?” All the while you're saying, what the hell is he on about? Spritz is just a pathetic jerk.

So save yourself the $10 this weekend and bang yourself on the head with a pot for two hours, and when you get out of the hospital you can thank me.

If you want to see a much better character piece about a mildly famous, middle aged male looking into the empty void that is his life, rent Lost in Translation — at least it has a heartbeat. Something you might not have after putting yourself through this torture.