Here’s the latest action flick from Nic Cage, “Drive Angry“.  He rips around in some late 60’s muscle cars, which is the height of originality. It’s like Cage wants to out-cool Kurt Russel in “Death Proof“, but just looks like a dude cranking his stick shift with a nubile Daisy Duke.

But it wasn’t always Chargers and Mustangs for Nicolas Cage. In the 90’s he drove Volvos in three different movies, forming the “Beige Volvo Trilogy.” Find out more, after the jump.

Television Tropes defines “Actor Allusion” as “…a joke or reference which is specific to one of the actors in a (film). It can be a little blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, or it can be bigger and more blatant.” For Nicolas Cage there was a running gag referenced beige Volvos, which showed up in three of his action adventure movies of the mid 1990s.

It all started with 1996’s The Rock, a Michael Bay thriller co-starring Sean Connery. Cage plays Stanley Goodspeed, a biochemist working for the FBI who needs to defuse a bomb on Alkatraz island. Connery’s character John Mason helps him out, but protests when Lightspeed becomes tired. To which Cage blurts out:

Look, I’m just a biochemist. Most of the time, I work in a little glass jar and lead a very uneventful life. I drive a Volvo, a beige one. But what I’m dealing with here is one of the most deadly substances the earth has ever known, so what say you cut me some FRIGGIN’ SLACK?

The insertion of the name “Volvo” and the cars beige color comes out awkwardly, as if he’s reciting a character description, not conversing as a human being. It’s a ham-fisted way to show how monumentally boring his character used to be, and comes across more funny than serious.

Next is Con Air, a prisoner escape flick from 1997. Here a beige 245 is used as a prop in a grotesque joke involving bird crap and a dead David Chappelle. Using Chappelle’s body as a message in a bottle, Cage secretly writes a note on his t-shirt and dumps his body off a plane flying above Fresno California. Cue the beige Volvo, recently washed but about to get really dirty. Click thumbnail images for full size.:

Finally, Cage steals a beige 850 after escaping from prison in the movie Face/Off.