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“While movie studios have had great difficulty adapting...”

written by Timix1 on 19/05/2007

Good Points
Nicolas Cage gives another gonzo performance that, if you're a fan of his, may well be worth the price of admission.

Bad Points
Uninspired writing, overall bad acting and lazy direction make this movie a bore.

General Comments
While movie studios have had great difficulty adapting the superheroes of DC Comics for the big screen, Marvel Comics has delivered litter after litter of superhero flicks in the last few years. The likes of Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four and Daredevil have all had their day in the spotlight (with Iron Man scheduled to take center stage in '08). Mind you, the quality level has varied wildly thus far; for every pulse-pounding epic like X-MEN 2, there's utter crap like ELEKTRA and THE PUNISHER.



Now comes GHOST RIDER. At best a second-string character in the Marvel Universe, my familiarity with Ghost Rider was largely limited to a single appearance in an issue of the X-Men comic book in the early '90s. As such, I walked into this film a relatively clean slate, ready to immerse myself into a fantastical world where a guy with a flaming skull for a head separates the saints from the sinners and metes out righteous vengeance from the seat of his motorcycle.



In the movie's prologue, we're shown how a teenage a motorcycle daredevil, Johnny Blaze, makes a pact with Mephistopheles (Fonda) to give up his soul in exchange for having his father cured of the cancer that is ravaging his body. Naturally, Mephistopheles kills the father by other means just for spite. Flash forward to the present, where the adult Blaze (Cage) has turned his stunt driving into a successful full-time career, miraculously avoiding disaster with every death-defying jump he performs. Mephistopheles eventually returns with a new deal for our hero: he'll give Blaze his soul back if the latter hunts down the demon's young upstart of a son (Bentley), who's plotting to find a legendary contract from Old West days that would allow him to control every soul on the planet. To aid him in his quest, the stunt driver is granted supernatural powers that turn him into a literal spirit of vengeance when the sun goes down. Mayhem ensues.



The visual effects help produce a couple of inventive sequences - including a thrilling bike ride down the side of an office building that was the highlight of the film's theatrical trailers - but overall they contribute little to the proceedings. The dialogue is uninspired, the acting is hammy and finesse-free [Mendes is little more than window-dressing, while Fonda and Bentley are two of the most boring on-screen villains in recent memory] and writer/director Mark Steven Johnson (who also brought us the underwhelming DAREDEVIL) fails to engage the audience on any emotional level. At their best, big-screen comic book adaptations like the SPIDER-MAN and X-MEN serials manage to make the characters and situations relatable on some level, anchoring the over-the-top action with some semblance of realism and humanity. A more ambitious director might have explored the concepts of sin and justice as seen through the eyes of a vigilante who has shared face time with the devil himself. Sadly, GHOST RIDER sidesteps the premise's more intriguing elements in favour of cheap, lazy thrills.



All that being said, GHOST RIDER does boast one element that will make it a passable source of entertainment for some: Nicolas Cage. Love him or hate him, you can't argue that Cage is highly adept at delivering memorably off-kilter performances on par with Johnny Depp; unlike Depp, however, his film projects rarely do justice to his unique talents. Here, those talents are largely wasted yet again, but he's never less than captivating. As I watched the curiously Zen-like Blaze drinking jellybeans from a wine glass while enjoying cartoons on TV, I could at least take pleasure in the knowledge that Cage knew well enough not to take this dim-witted film too seriously. He's just along for the ride, so to speak.



As for the rest of you, I'd suggest skipping this ride altogether. Unless you're an incurable action-movie junkie, wait for the DVD. Ghost Rider may pardon you for watching this movie, but you'll never forgive yourself for spending good money on this hopeless slop.