The Weather Man drew my attention when I heard what the film was about, but a disappointment and slight depression came on my like a foul wind when I read that Nicolas Cage was in the title role. A pity, since this would the ideal role for William H. Macy, who has made a career of finding the core loneliness at the center of characters who have to maintain public faces.

Cage , of course, is a neon sign that is never off, buzzing with some circuits burned out or blinking madly in both daylight and night. It's a predictable set of histronics he has assembled in side that little bag of actorly tricks he owns

for the defeated purpose of catching a viewer by surprise. He is as formulaic in his performances as Tony Scott is in his excessive jumpcuts and jitter-cam pacing; neither can trust an understated moment, or let character and story develop in ways other than frequent bursts of

problem-child energy.

It's certainly a smart idea to explore the eternal vacuum that one imagines occupies the minds of the relentlessly cheery sorts of who impanel the local news shows, but there's that sinking feeling when Nicolas Cage is selected to play the principle character. It's not that Cage lacks the demonstrative ticks and shticks to animate the sort who has no passion or life force beyond their presence in front of the camera, it's just that we've seen them again with little variety or invention since Honeymoon in Vegas, Face/Offor The Rock.

Those likewise not convinced of Cage's greatness may insert their own examples of where this bafflingly blank method actor doesn't so much chew up the scenes he's in as much a takes a wrecking ball to them, mixing twitch, itch, tick,thousand-yard states, mumbling and inexplicable Elvisisms in slight reshufflings, movie to movie,in a consistent display that an amassing of quirky

mannerisms is the same as creating a character.

You've captured it, Stephanie. There ARE times the movie works pretty well. Otherwise, it's one of those dreaded "shoulder shruggers". I'd rather hate a movie than to feel three shades of meh about it. In this one, the credits roll and you go home and forget what you just saw. [There are far too many pictures like THAT these days.] The least 'The Weather Man' should have been was memorable...especially with guys like Cage & Caine doing the thespian stuff.

Caine is about the best thing in the picture (no stunner there) and Cage is a good enough match that the movie might have been memorable if it had veered into a father/son story. As a whole, though, it just sort of sits there, flat as an envelope. We've seen this material done many times before and Verbinski doesn't do anything new with it.

Oh, but I DID love the scene where Cage is waiting at a stoplight while out on an errand to get tartar sauce. We hear his inner monologue and his mind is going 10,000 miles an hour. He has about 20 separate thoughts in about 40 seconds. Geez, I've been there, often while waiting at traffic lights. THAT scene was perfect.