Cage Match: Fire Birds (1990)

Cage takes to the skies in the 1990 action flick “Fire Birds”, a blatant “Top Gun” knockoff that you’ve probably never heard of. Wonder why?

TL;DR: What if someone tried to remake Top Gun with helicopters instead of fighter jets and Nicolas Cage instead of Tom Cruise? The result is Fire Birds—a derivative, clunky, and shockingly dull ’90s actioner that proves even Cage’s quirks can’t keep it from crashing into obscurity.

IN THIS CORNER: KELLY MINTZER

The Lowdown 

Movies often come in pairs; Dante’s Peak had Volcano. Deep Impact had Armageddon. Hell, even Capote had Infamous. Usually, one movie eclipses the other in terms of quality (except the Capote movies; they’re both amazing). But in the case of Top Gun and Fire Birds, there is no eclipse. Because for that to occur, they would need to exist in the same galaxy, and these films… well, they are in separate universes.

Guess which one’s better? I’ll give you a clue, it’s NOT the one I watched for this column.

Nicolas Cage steps into the Tom Cruise role of the cocky, naturally talented (is that really a thing?) young up-and-coming flyboy. Fire Birds opens with a quote from George Bush, so I knew I was in enemy territory pretty immediately. Add in some “war on drugs” bullshit, and I’m fully rolling my eyes.

But Nancy Reagan, hold my beer, this movie gets even worse.

I’m not a big Top Gun girly; I think it’s a stupid boy movie for boys. BUT. You can’t deny that the film has star power.

Insane as he became, Tom Cruise was a movie star the second he stepped onto the screen, and he actually manages to make Maverick charming. Not a guy I would date if you paid me to, but one who might actually have managed to charm a different Kelly (McGillis, to be precise). And then there’s the supporting cast. Even if you don’t like Tom Cruise, you’ve got Val Kilmer, Tom Skerritt, Tim Robbins, and Meg Ryan.

Fire Birds has Tommy Lee Jones, doing fine enough, I guess, and poor Sean Young, doing her best to strap this monstrosity of a film onto her slender frame and drag it into at least ok-territory, since “masterpiece” is an absolute impossibility. She has the unenviable task of being the love interest, or, more aptly stated, obsession.

Sean’s character REPEATEDLY tells Cage’s Jake Preston, “No thanks, bro,” and he dogs her steps. I know this is a trope of movies from this era—that refusing to accept a rejection is charming—and I’ve always hated it. But it’s extra egregious in this because, bless his soul, Cage can’t figure out a way to make this character at all likable. (See ‘The Cage Factor’ below.)

I could try to talk about the action scenes, but honestly, who fucking cares? This movie sucks, and I am angry at Nicolas Cage for making it.

The Cage Factor: 

Nicolas Cage is absolutely ungovernable in this one; I strongly suspect he must have been an absolute nightmare for directors during this general era because there is no way anyone ASKED for this performance.

He screams, mugs, and just generally irritates his way through every scene. I can’t understand one reason why Sean Young’s character (Billie Lee Guthrie), a smart and lovely woman, would put up with his shit. This makes the film’s romance painfully unnecessary. In fact, it feels downright sexist. Billie starts out seeming capable and independent, and then, rather abruptly, is back on board with Jake Preston’s nonsense.

Is she supposed to be overwhelmed by what an amazing pilot he is? Are we to believe that no woman could resist an aviator chock full of cocaine who spends an entire scene saying, “I am the greatest!” over and over again? Rage.

AND IN THIS CORNER: STEPHANIE MALONE

The Lowdown 

Imagine stumbling across a forgotten VHS in the bargain bin: Top Gun with helicopters. Tell me more!

The recipe: Nic Cage, still in his floppy-haired heartthrob era, strapping into an Apache helicopter to chew gum, scream “I am the greatest!”, and play Maverick on steroids. Tommy Lee Jones as the grizzled mentor, and Sean Young as the love interest.

You’d think you just discovered the must-see cult classic you never knew existed. A sweaty, flag-waving, “so bad it’s good” slice of ’90s action heaven. If it weren’t a bona fide hidden gem, surely it would at least be a campy trainwreck. How could it not be?

And yet, Fire Birds manages the unthinkable: taking that winning formula and nose-diving it straight into cinematic purgatory.

Released in 1990, Fire Birds (also known as Wings of the Apache) was pitched as a star-studded action blockbuster. On paper, it had everything going for it, including the full backing of the U.S. Army to deliver slick aerial combat footage. What audiences got instead was a lethargic, uninspired clone of Top Gun stripped of everything that made Tony Scott’s film soar.

The comparisons are both inevitable and damning. Cage plays Jake Preston, the cocky young pilot who enters an elite helicopter training program after a mission goes wrong. There’s the veteran instructor (Jones), the frosty love interest who just happens to be in the program (Young), the training montages, and the climactic showdown with faceless villains—in this case, drug cartels.

Structurally, it’s a carbon copy, but where TOP GUN gave us swagger, homoerotic tension, Kenny Loggins needle-drops, and endlessly rewatchable aerial battles, FIRE BIRDS sputters along with clunky pacing, underwhelming helicopter footage, and a shoddy script that feels like the real enemy of the people.

Even the action, the one area where the film should shine, feels slow and repetitive. Helicopters are imposing machines, but they simply lack the thrilling speed and visual dynamism of fighter jets. The U.S. Army provided real Apaches for filming, and yet somehow the combat scenes manage to feel oddly flat and confusing.

Worse, the film’s dated politics weigh it down further.

With its Reagan-era leftovers and “war on drugs” moralizing, it plays more like propaganda than entertainment. The faceless South American villains are little more than target practice, and the pro-military posturing is so heavy-handed it borders on parody.

And then there’s the romance. Sean Young plays Billie Lee Guthrie, a female combat pilot—an idea that could have been progressive, but instead gets drowned in half-baked writing and creepy “flirting” (aka stalking) from Cage’s Jake. Whatever sparks the writers imagined between the two never make it to the screen.

Fire Birds should’ve been a guaranteed thrill ride. Young leading man Cage chewing scenery, Tommy Lee Jones barking orders, and enough military hardware to fuel a Reagan-era fever dream. Instead, it’s proof that even with all the right ingredients, you can still serve up cinematic gruel.

For Cage completists, there’s a certain masochistic pleasure in watching him scream “I am the greatest!” repeatedly into a flight simulator, but that fleeting high isn’t enough to justify the slog.

The Cage Factor:

So, how does Nicolas Cage fare in this crash-and-burn?

At the time, critics accused Cage of phoning it in. His Jake Preston is supposed to be cocky and charismatic, but comes across as more petulant than magnetic. Compared to Tom Cruise’s Maverick, who radiated control even in his arrogance, Cage’s Jake is messy and inconsistent, like he’s trying to decide if he should lean into full Cage mania or hold back for the paycheck.

That said, there are sparks of the Cage we’d come to know and love. His bizarre gum-chewing, his odd line deliveries, and especially the infamous simulator scene; it’s Cage distilled into pure absurdist energy. In a movie that otherwise lulls you into a stupor, these sudden jolts of manic bravado feel like gifts.

The problem is, these moments are fleeting. This isn’t a performance that transcends bad material. Instead, it offers only flashes of weird brilliance, buried in a sea of mediocrity.

Look, no one is more of a Cage apologist than me. However, this is one instance where even Cage fails to elevate the material or make it particularly watchable. Perhaps that’s the film’s most remarkable (accidental) achievement.