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And what merits they are. Cage has played criminals inept and competent (“Raising Arizona,� “National Treasure�), a romantic baker (“Moonstruck�), a struggling screenwriter and his twin brother (“Adaptation�), a soldier in Vietnam (“Birdy�), an unemployed widower who drinks himself to death (“Leaving Las Vegas,� for which he won a Best Actor Oscar). Cage has played multiple superheroes in “Kick-Ass,� the “Ghost Rider films� and Spider-Man Noir in the animated “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.�

isn’t even the first film in which he’s played a vampire, if you count the dark 1988 comedy in which Cage played a literary agent who believes he’s morphing into a vampire. Not a lot of people saw it in theaters, but I was among them. That film solidified my fandom, which had been seeded by earlier films, including “Valley Girl,� “Raising Arizona� and “Moonstruck.�

Cage’s acting style is over the top and often strange, but his characters remain weirdly plausible, and his performances are usually memorable. That’s a special skill in Hollywood that generates its fair share of ultimately forgettable films, after the hype subsides, and standout performances that stick to the mental ribs for years are rare.

Yet highly stylized performances are going to be distracting for some, and Cage is not for everyone. I don’t know how polarizing he is, exactly, but I know Cage haters exist.

I’m personally acquainted with two people who really can’t stand him — and feel the need to broadcast it to the world.

I hate to tell them, but despite their strong antipathy toward Cage, casting directors still put him in films, and he still garners acclaim. The guy has won an Oscar for his acting.

Yet I almost have to admire when people are so sure they are correct in their opinions, they’re willing to tilt at the windmill of the Hollywood juggernaut.

One of my two friends who find Cage’s work loathsome used to work here at The ÅÝֱܽ²¥, and she would go off on his purported lack of talent any time his name was mentioned.

Then there’s this guy Mike back in Florida. He really did not like 2022’s “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,� an action comedy in which Cage starred as himself, or a version of himself, opposite Pedro Pascal, who’s been having a moment and seems to be everybody’s current favorite actor (note, I haven’t checked with my former colleague or Mike to check the accuracy of that statement).

Take its title however you want, but the film didn’t seem take itself too seriously, with Cage struggling to get roles and taking a paycheck to make an island visit with Pacal’s drug lord character. I thoroughly enjoyed his performance when I rented it last week.

But my friend Mike, who has gone off on Cage more than once on his Facebook over the past year, had another short, decontextualized burst, writing of the same film: “Thanks Pedro Pascal!!! A--hat … I’ll never go to the movies again! U suck!�

Among the puzzled reactions and replies was mine: “Is this because he did a movie with Nicolas Cage?� Mike gave my comment a thumbs up, so I took it as a yes.

“The beefs are many and confusing,� I replied.

Naturally, I’ve begun replying to Mike’s rants with GIFs of Cage in whatever role seems most appropriate to the rant. And when I was getting ready to watch “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,� I took a screen shot, posted it on Facebook and mentioned Mike. To his credit, he replied, “No comment!! Tired of arguing!!!! Great movie.�

Well, as Cage said so memorably in I may not have really changed his mind — is such a thing even possible? — but at least I got Mike to cry uncle.