I enjoyed this one quite a bit, although as many have mentioned it gets pretty wild towards the end. I have no nostalgia for the original, but watched it a few months before this one and the two contrast really well. For one, Thom Yorke’s soundtrack is absolutely stunning and such an interesting choice considering Goblin’s music in the original.
Coming to this a month late, as I just watched the movie and did some searching to see what people thought.
I’m not sure if I totally missed something or people were just reading too much into it, but I didn’t get any kind of trans messaging/interpretation at all. I just thought that Nic Cage was supposed to be a Satanic weirdo (and as you said, I took him as a cis-man). Honestly, Cage’s character being trans didn’t cross my mind at all, I just thought that he was a weirdo.