NoFace for Film

Title: Ghost Rider
Year: 2007
Director: Mark Steven Johnson
Starring: Nicholas Cage, Eva Mendes
Rated: PG-13

NoFace for Film rating: 2 out of 7

Why did I watch this movie?

All the signs were there. Rotten Tomatoes has so far given it a miserable 24%. I found out the other day that it was directed by Mark Steven Johnson, the man responsible for inflicting Daredevil and Elektra on an unsuspecting public. My boyfriend and I got to the theater about a half hour early and found it suspiciously empty. You’d think that it’d have been a packed house considering that it’s opening weekend. Oh yes, all the signs were there- but foolishly we chose to stay and watch.

Ghost Rider is based on the Marvel comic book of the same name. Johnny Blaze (Cage) is a world-famous stunt motorcyclist who always seems to cheat death in spite of his increasingly dangrous stunts. His crew believes that he’s been touched by an angel, which is technically not far from the truth. As a teenager, Blaze made a deal with Mephistopheles (Peter Fonda). However, Mephistopheles doesn’t just take his soul as payment. He also appoints Johnny as his Ghost Rider, a demon bounty hunter assigned to harvest evil souls to deliver to Hell. When Mephistopheles’ son Blackheart (Wes Bentley) arrives on Earth stirring up trouble, Ghost Rider is summonded to get rid of him.

Because I’m a generous person, I’ll start with the one positive aspect of this movie. The special effects were very cool. I thought that the flaming skull and flaming bike were done nicely. I also thought that the quick flashes of demonic faces underneath Mephistopheles’ and Blackheart’s human masks are quite creepy but cool.

Ok, now I’m done being nice.

To put it succintly, Ghost Rider was pure cheese. Not just any cheese- we’re talking cheap, rotten, sub-standard government cheese. The dialogue was painful to listen to. Many lines were just as bad as Peter Parker’s little speech at the end of Spider-Man. The acting was terrible. Cage hammed it up for the most part. I never took him seriously. The scene in which he physically transforms into Ghost Rider for the first time was ridiculously long and drawn out. It was also not meant to be funny, but I couldn’t help but laugh at how silly it was. There was no chemistry between him and Mendes, who played his long-lost love Roxanne.

As for the supporting actors, Fonda and Bentley were especially hammy playing the bad guys. It’s as if both attended the John Travolta School of Bad Guy Roles prior to shooting this movie. Sam Elliott was good, but he’s pretty much like Kris Kristofferson from Blade, an infinitely better comic book film. Speaking of which, I could not believe my eyes when the climactic battle near the end of Ghost Rider was a complete rip-off of the climactic battle near the end of Blade. The open ending made me groan, because I knew that it was to herald the coming of a sequel.

It’s unfortunate that Ghost Rider turned out to be a big joke. It’s clear that all the money used to make this movie went into the snazzy CGI and Cage’s bank account. In the hands of a more talented director -like Christopher Nolan- who could take the story seriously, it could have been a great movie. Nolan would have been able to take the characters and give them more depth, instead of making them into caricatures. He would have told Fonda and Bentley to severely tone down their bad guy roles. He would have done away with the horrible, George Lucas-style dialogue. Alas, Mark Steven Johnson was at the helm of this flick, and as a result we have a stinkin’ pile of cheese.

Technorati Tags: Ghost Rider, Marvel Comics, Johnny Blaze, Nicholas Cage, Eva Mendes, Peter Fonda, Sam Elliott, Wes Bentley

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