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'The Weather Man' lacks warmth to accompany its humor

The forecast for The Weather Man with Nicolas Cage calls for a suffocating fog of doom and gloom that feels as cold and unwelcoming as an Arctic blast.

Despite occasional glimmers of inspiration, The Weather Man is relentlessly glum and hard to admire. It feels like watching Snoopy writing page after page of "It was a dark and stormy night," without ever getting to "Suddenly a shot rang out!"

Paramount Pictures 'The Weather Man' C- The verdict: A quirky look at a man's tortured psyche, without the vivid energy the director has brought to previous movies. Director: Gore Verbinski Starring: Nicolas Cage, Michael Caine, Hope Davis, Gemmenne de la Pena, Nicholas Hoult Run time: 102 minutes Release date: Oct. 28, 2005 Rating: R for strong language and sexual content. See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate 'The Weather Man'   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

Cage plays David Spritz, a Chicago TV weather man whose life is one disaster after another. His agitated viewers constantly throw food at him. His father (Michael Caine) is dying. His ex-wife (Hope Davis) refuses to reconcile. His son (Nicholas Hoult) tangles with a pedophile, and his 12-year-old daughter (Gemmenne de la Pena) is overweight and smokes.

I can't imagine why.

But David sees a ray of hope. He applies for a job as a national weather man on Bryant Gumbel's show, hoping that such good fortune will turn his life around so that he can live up to the legacy of his revered father and repair his strained relations with his ex-wife and kids.

The Weather Man reminded me of American Beauty in that both movies center around a middle-aged man whose life hasn't gone as he hoped, so he struggles to find his place in the world. However, American Beauty's tone of wonder and personal triumph is almost absent in The Weather Man.

As frustrated as Kevin Spacey's Lester Burnham was, he was eventually able to find something positive in life. Even when Cage's character comes to accept his place in the world, there's no epiphany — no sense of joy or discovery. In the end, David Spritz is still a sad sack. He's just not quite as sad as he was.

This is a real disappointment coming from director Gore Verbinski, who usually brings vivid energy to movies like The Ring and Pirates of the Caribbean. Even The Mexican, flawed as it was, had a sense of fun about it. Verbinski tries to make The Weather Man into a quirky look at a man's tortured psyche, and he does, but only Caine brings the movie a badly needed dose of warmth.

As unlikable as David is, in fairness, Cage's performance does bring the movie to life in spurts. The actor's gift for laid-back shtick makes David quite funny at times. I laughed out loud at his stream-of-consciousness voice-over monologues.

I especially loved the one about how random thoughts can make a guy forget the tartar sauce when picking up dinner. His speech about getting pelted with all kinds of fast food is also very funny, sprinkled with off-the-wall remarks about how this never happened to people like Thomas Jefferson or Harriet Tubman.

With wit like that, I sense that Steven Conrad's screenplay reads well on the page, but something got lost in translation to the screen when Verbinski turned it into a morose pity party. In a recent interview, the director said, "There are a lot of movies out there for anybody with a pulse, but The Weather Man is an acquired taste."

He's right. Unfortunately, the taste is awfully sour.