Cage and Travolta spent two weeks together learning each other's mannerisms; the film was originally set in the future, in space; the studio wanted the slash out of the title; the boat chase took four weeks to film; the special edition DVD has an alternate mirror ending; Castor Troy kills 20 people; a Metacritic score of 82
The corner is called half-assed because you cannot believe pretty much anything on the internet; according to it Cage and Travolta spent two weeks together picking up each other's mannerisms and learning to play one another, which the hosts buy, and then played really crazy dialed-up versions of themselves.
Buys the two weeks: that is the kind of thing you do when you are an actor to pretend it is a job. — Jason Concepcion
Whose idea was it, Cage's or Travolta's? 100 percent Cage, imagined inviting him to Bangkok or Thailand to hang out.
Originally the film was set in the future, in space, where face technology is better; Woo would not do it and said it needed to be more realistic, which amuses the hosts since space travel has actually been done while face switching and magnetic boots have not.
The studio wanted to take the slash out of the title and John Woo resisted, thinking people would think it was a hockey movie, Johnny Depp being the great example; the boat chase took four weeks to film, which makes sense because it feels like it lasts four weeks in San Diego.
This was a cool era of movies where desert, marina and big city sit within three blocks, like Seven with its constant rain and then desert; the 90s did not care about meteorology, and it lasted through Collateral with Jamie Foxx getting from the airport to downtown in seven minutes.
The special edition DVD has deleted scenes and an alternate ending in which Travolta looks in the mirror and Joan Allen gasps as she and the audience see Castor's face as his reflection; the studio nixed it, an atrocious idea now on the disc.
Guesses that Castor Troy killed around 20 people. — Jason Concepcion
The body-count quiz draws guesses of at least 24 and 20, with three kills in the first 45 seconds before he slows down; the answer is 20, close enough that the accuracy is called disturbing, Concepcion credited with nailing it after two hosts watched the film four times in a row.
A favorite moment: after they get Castor, Sean walks into the office, is told the CIA sent champagne, says he did not know they did catering, then bummed out suggests a drink and names anonymous extras shot in the first shootout, Winters and Finesco, whom nobody cares about; Winters had been on screen for 27 seconds.
The favorite killing: Castor holds an undercover woman out of the plane, shoots her, throws her off, she gets run over by the plane and he does the Jordan shrug; before that he makes a crude come-on about sending her flowers and rephrases it into something lewder.
They had been working to catch an international, apolitical, stateless terrorist operating in Los Angeles who had already assassinated a federal agent's child, yet all it took was the brother buying a plane ticket and an agent already in place; he was wearing a fake mustache.
Metacritic gave it 82 out of 100, which astonished one host; another calls that a low score for acting that has Nicolas Cage pretending to be Castor Troy pretending to be John Travolta pretending to be Sean Archer pretending to be Castor Troy, five levels Inception deep.
The prison fight; the concept itself; the 3D-printed ear at Walsh Industries; the magnetic boots; working the title into a scene; Joan Allen going along with the switch
The magnetic boots and the concept itself, going undercover by switching faces with a guy in a coma, still hold up.
Joan Allen plays Travolta's wife, and after the switch she and Cage wearing Travolta's face live as husband and wife, which raises the eternal twenty-year question of whether the surgery extended below the neck; the hosts imagine the conversation with CCH Pounder (as transcribed Bounder) and conclude there was no time, he had to go undercover now.
When did she know? Probably immediately, there is no way they were the same; one host returns to whether his own wife would know, and the joke turns on whether she would recognize that detail of his enemy Neil.
Walsh Industries, where the procedure is done, convinces him because a guy is 3D printing an ear when he walks in; they were also doing chest hairs, removing double chins, moving scars and hairlines, and they take a shot at Travolta's love handles; Travolta could have worked out before filming, since Cage is noticeably skinnier and ready to go.
A clip of the title worked into an actual scene is played, 'I'd like to take his face off', which the movie then says six more times; all action movies should do this, with the imagined Mufasa line to Simba, 'you are the Lion King'.
Polled on what aged best, one host goes with the fight in the prison, sticking with that one as the best magnetic-prison-boots fight ever, a scene you could put in every movie; another likes the idea of the actual face-off part and would watch a new Face Off every year.
After the choices are run through again, magnetic boots, the concept, the title in a scene and Joan Allen realizing early that it is not her husband but going with it, the concept itself is picked and echoed, since it could be a Netflix series everybody would watch, with an expanded face-off universe where he spends three seasons trying to get his old face back.
Picks the moment they walk in and are 3D printing the ear, which seemed so amazing then and can just be done now. — Jason Concepcion
Whether you can really make an ear at home is argued: you can make a sculpture of an ear, not attach it to a person's head, which is the important part.
