A Flimsy Excuse

By: amatorian
Date: Wednesday, June 13, 2007

“Ghost Rider!!  keep ridin' never stop ridin' don't forget to burn, don't forget to burn”
    -    Henry Rollins band

Perhaps it’s not Shakespeare, but its simplicity is something to be admired.  Ghost Rider was created in the seventies as a more edgy character.  From this period of time in Marvel comics we saw the creation of others similar such as Wolverine and the Punisher.  Dark characters, creations with soul and depth that comics hadn’t seen yet.  Morbid heroes enacting whatever necessary judgments against those that would do harm.

Even though in it’s greatest of forms it has taken the comics many years to refine and allow for a more mature audience with these characters the possibilities were there.  So, like all comic based movies and me, I was excited to see they were making a film out of the burnin' skull.  I gave the film a chance, despite Mark Steven Johnson’s failure of Daredevil.  Reason?  The director’s cut of Daredevil is far better than the theatrical.  So, I figured since Daredevil was such a success the studio would allow Johnson more ability to cut his film the way he wished to.

For those that do not know any of the stories of the character let’s go through the tale of the movie.  Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage) is a stunt man.  His father, another stunt performer, was killed during an attempted stunt.  Because of circumstances surrounding the event Johnny ended up selling his soul to Mephistopheles (Peter Fonda) who essentially is the devil.  Years later we find Johnny always looking over his shoulder over the deal struck on that long day back.  Also, there happens to be a love interest between Johnny and a high school sweetheart.

Eventually something turns sour and Mephistopheles calls upon Johnny to be his Ghost Rider, a being that is hell’s bounty hunter.  A force for good only for the purpose of finding that which is evil and returning it to it’s dark master (woohoo!!  Written melodrama!!).  Blackheart (Wes Bentley) has come to earth to find a contract with the names and souls attached 1,000 damned individuals.  A contract that could cause the beginnings of the Apocalypse.  Obviously Mephistopheles doesn’t want this to happen with anybody other than himself in control.

The basics of a popcorn movie are all there with this one, much like any comic book adaptation.  Something fantastical happens to our protagonist, powers and such, and a very evil person or being is unleashed upon the earth, which our hero must stop!!  Popcorn purity is the comic book style.  With Ghost Rider it should have been at its apex, causing geekgasms in me as I watched a flaming skeleton ride around on an awesome motorcycle beating up evil.  When these scenes arrive you are in awe, CG effects making the effort of believability not hard. 

Like most letdown comic adaptations (as well as many action flicks), though, the problem tends not to be the action scenes but the rest of the movie.  Starting with the actors.  I always thought Nicolas Cage was a good pick until I saw him in the movie.  Here is a talented actor that seems to enjoy over-acting in the most simple of movies.  I can dig that, but add onto it a bad Texas accent and a two dimensionally created personage that seems to be mourning his lost puppy instead of his lost soul….well, you get the point.  I’m not sure there was anything he could have done to enhance the character because at the end the script felt deadened, giving Johnny comic relief when it’s neither necessary or desired (at least by me). 

Supporting actors are no better.  Eva Mendes, as the love interest of Johnny, is not so much a bad idea for actor or character.  Either through the way she plays Roxanne or the writing itself, this love story seems riddled with every cliché seen before and then some.  Long time past, haven’t seen her, waltzes into his life, he must have her back, destiny interferes, oh no!!  Honestly, love lost, reclaimed, lost again is just one more of the complicated basics in romantic side stories since the beginning of filmmaking.  To add insult to injury it’s not even written well enough so that we care.  There are plenty of movies I love that have such un-original basis for the subplots, but are written so well that I don’t even notice.

Wes Bentley as Blackheart is neither frightening nor intimidating.  Is it the actor himself?  Perhaps, but I’m gonna play this one off onto the script as well.  Bentley does look the part, but his acting does not follow through especially when dealing with atrocious lines of dialogue.  His character would have been better if he just stood there, never saying a word and had everyone else kind of round out his dialogue for him.

The only standouts I saw in the movie were Sam Elliot as the Caretaker and Peter Fonda as Mephistopheles.  Here are two well-respected actors in the community taking some of the worse dialogue and trying to make it work.  It doesn’t always, but their attempts, their work is a phenomenal achievement to make us care more for them than our hero.  Dialogue, personality, emotional responses are not things that reverberate in this script nor in the directing.  Yet, here are actors playing two completely different beings and pulling them off.  Not as well if the script was better, but still doing it.

Interaction between the stars of this movie just don’t fly so we look forward to the moment when Cage morphs into the awesome one and it’s an impressive sight.  Great care and precision went into crafting the effects for this movie, it shows through and the comic book lover in me thoroughly enjoyed seeing the Rider in full.  But, the action scenes suffer from repetitive strategies; seeming like each sequence was built upon the same foundation.  At the end we are to be given a climactic battle of good versus evil and it lacks what we would expect. 

The best analogy to this film would be like screwing Paris Hilton (I remind you this is based upon the sex tape that was released and not personal experience).  She looks good, and I’m sure there is a fair share of enjoyment from that mere fact, but she doesn’t get into it, always seems more like posing instead of getting into it and by the end you just want it to be over…to top that off your climax is pitiful and it pisses you off so badly that you then go home and masturbate just so you can have a better time.

My analogies are the greatest, aren’t they?

Lack of style, substance, characterization, acting and repetitive action sequences drag down what could have, at the very least, been a phenomenal popcorn movie. 

Amatorius

UPDATE!! - I just finished watching the extended cut of this movie on DVD.  Several times I have found that these extended cuts help the film to be better (Daredevil and Fantastic Four so far are the predominate ones).  This one is not.  It takes care of a few of the editing issues and inconsistency that was originally in the theatrical, but it doesn't actually make the movie better.  The Extended Cut of Ghost Rider gets a C-, still not even very good, just few bits and thats it.

Click here to read the staff review by Mania.