Ghost Rider

For the finale of Nicolas Cage Month, I thought it would seem fitting to look at one of the worst mistakes in Cage’s acting career, “Ghost Rider,” released in 2007.

Teaming up over-actor Nicolas Cage with the questionable abilities of comic book adaptation director Mark Steven Johnson was always going to be something to doubt, but their efforts go horribly wrong in a narrow movie. This CGI-covered attempt at a franchise beginning puts Cage as Johnny Blaze – a daredevil motorcycle rider who at night turns into a motorcycle rider on fire and a pawn for Satan, Mephistopheles, played by Peter Fonda. With a skull on fire, he’s on a mission to stop a team of fallen angels led by Mephistopheles’s son Blackheart, played by Wes Bentley, from breaking anarchy on Earth.

For the necessary starter to the movie, we first see young Johnny (Matt Long) as part of a stunt double act with his cancer patient father Barton Blaze (Brett Cullen) and in a great relationship with his hot girlfriend Roxanne (Raquel Alessi). When Mephistopheles appears giving a cure for Barton in exchange for Johnny’s soul, everything looks fine…for five minutes. The next day Barton dies after crashing during a stunt and Johnny runs from his girlfriend to wait for Mephistopheles to call and become his henchman. Cut to years later when Blaze is an adult and jaded, who is a daredevil everywhere, making everyone love him except himself: he is gotten used to surviving near death crashes as he is kept alive for a more fortunate job. When Blackheart and his team show up, Mephistopheles reminds the time on the contract to turn Blaze into the Ghost Rider. Mike Barnard stated in his review, “Armed with a motorbike, chain and lots of fire to defeat the foes it is goodbye Cage, hello CGI superhero number 53.”

Writer/director Mark Steven Johnson’s “Daredevil” and “Elektra” movies (both of which he wrote, and the former he also directed) were not very smart but had a lot of action in them, and this is not any different. Barnard noted, “Cage sleepwalks through his role as Blaze, mostly looking like he only got up a second before shooting each scene. As the Ghost Rider, computer effects take over from any acting ability and it is in these moments that you realise how much fun this film could have been.” Riding through the streets and up tall buildings he destroys roads, cars and everything else with eye-candy over-the-top pyrotechnics shooting off in every direction. However, when he goes up against his enemies, they are killed in a few short seconds. There are not any long fights, just a disappointing chain spin for every foe. Aside from that, Bentley, Fonda and the hot Eva Mendes have difficulty with heavy dialogue that is only there to move the story along as fast as it can. Sam Elliott’s wise custodian who helps Blaze is as corny as he can be.

Barnard noted, “The dark depths of Batman Begins, the teenage strife of the two Spider-man films and a very personal Superman Returns all proved that comic book movies do not have to be dumbed down because they are heavy on action set pieces. Ghost Rider bearly leaves a skidmark on the road of emotions as it speeds through a series of daft sequences that might sell a few toys, but will not be signposted as great cinematic eye candy.” Questions like how can a superhero on fire dive to the bottom of a river, survive and then drive a motorcycle on the surface make you realize how stupid everything is. Barnard pleaded, “After the awful remake of The Wicker Man and now this, Cage needs to produce something special next to make up for crimes against cinema. Please, let us hope it’s not a Ghost Rider sequel.”

Well, sad news Barnard. Cage reprised his role of Johnny Blaze in one of the worst comic book sequels and sequels ever made, “Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance,” released in 2012.

Scott started his review out by saying, “When I go to see a Nicolas Cage movie I expect cheesy fun. There should be plenty of over the top action and even further over the top acting. I've seen so many of his movies now that I know better than to expect one to actually be good. The most I ever hope for is that it will be so bad that it's good. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance accomplishes the first half of that quite easily, but never gets around to the second. It's just plain bad.”

Scott goes on to say, “Do you remember the first Ghost Rider movie? I saw it less than 5 years ago and yet I only have the vaguest memories of it and what I do remember of it is all negative. I had to reread my own review just to remind myself what I thought about it, which wasn't much and this review will mostly say the same.”

Cage is once again Johnny Blaze. A man who sold his soul to Satan so that his father’s cancer could be cured. Johnny finds out that he made a wrong move and now turns into the Ghost Rider at night, a skeleton on fire who rides a motorcycle and has a burning chain. He has the greatest superhero power which is the Penance Stare. He looks completely intimidating and the story sounds dark and is given possibilities, which everything goes unfulfilled. What looks like a dark and twisted movie is instead looking like a kids or a teens flick.

For no reason whatsoever Mephistopheles or Roarke, now played by Ciarán Hinds, lives on Earth in a man’s body. In order for him to stay alive he has to once in a while change bodies. Over 12 years before the movie’s beginning he got a woman by the name of Nadya Ketch (Violante Placido) pregnant and now that her son, Danny (Fergus Riordan) is close to his 13^th birthday Roarke wants to transfer his soul into Danny’s body. Johnny promises a member of a secret religious organization named Moreau, played by Idris Elba, that if he can protect Danny and stop Roarke from transferring his soul into Danny’s body, Moreau will lift the Ghost Rider curse from Johnny. The rest of the movie is just a lot of chase scenes as Roarke and Johnny switch up who chases who, depending on who has Danny in their grasp during that certain chase. It’s like the old Willie E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoons, only not entertaining.

Some of the visuals are actually amazing. The Ghost Rider with his motorcycle on fire and his flaming chain look much better here than in the first movie. A drug Dealer named Ray Carrigan, played by Johnny Whitworth, is granted the power of decay from Roarke, meaning that anything he touches will be decayed right then and there (then why isn’t anything on him decaying), which looks pretty good, but the last fight between him and Rider is disappointing.

The violence in here is not bloody and very cartoonish. The Rider only kills with his chain, which evaporates his victims. He is able to survive near-death experiences easily, including get blown away by missiles. Because of his close complete protection there is never any real pressure.

Scott said, “I wasted an extra four dollars by paying to see this movie in 3-D. In a world where 3-D adds very little to films, this one outdoes itself by doing even less. There's absolutely nothing to be gained except the studio a little more money by seeing this in 3-D.”

What’s seriously missing is your ability to have fun. There’s no humor either intentional or unintentional. The actors take it seriously enough, but not seriously enough to have it look campy. It’s completely boring. Scott admitted, “About the most fun I had was spotting Christopher Lambert and Anthony Head in two very small parts.”

Scott ended his review by saying, “I don't know what keeps that flaming motorcycle running because these movies ran out of gas sometime during the first film.”

In the end, these two movies blow. Despite the fact that when Johnny turns into Ghost Rider, nothing in this movie makes it interesting. These are just two of the worst comic book adaptations ever made, and they are just a pain to sit through. Don’t bother going out to look for them because you will be really disappointed when watching it. Nicolas Cage thankfully said that if they are going to do a third movie (which hopefully they don’t), he will not reprise the role. Smart idea Mr. Cage.

Thank goodness I got those two over with. Now we have ended “Nicolas Cage Month.” I hope all of you enjoyed it. Stay tuned next month, which will be February. That’s right, it’s time for my fifth round of “Black History Month Movie Reviews.” Stay tuned because I got a franchise that I will have a great time reviewing.