Ghost Rider
Review by Loc
It’s not that often you go into a movie and get completely surprised. Where the flick does an amazing job of telling a story, so amazing that you’re totally engrossed by it. The suspension of reality, even if only for two hours, is the magic of cinema. Ghost Rider is not one of these films. Then again, it really isn’t trying to be epic either. Quick hit: run-of-the-mill and not-at-all spectacular, but mildly entertaining for a B-level comic character.
In the comic world, you have your Spider-man, Superman, and Batman: iconic images known through the vast majority of Western cultures. Below that, you get stuff like Wonder Woman or X-Men or Iron-Man: relatively well-known properties that Joe Schmo would be able to name given enough time. Well, drop around three tiers from that and you start running into characters like Blade, Daredevil, and Ghost Rider. You might think they’re comic characters, but who really cares. Which actually sums up the quality level of this film, it’s OK, but there clearly isn’t the time and effort put into creating a blockbuster like Spider-man.
And it shows in all the major places. Story and plot? Check. Granted, the idea of a skeletal, hog-riding spirit-of-vengeance, complete with flaming skull, probably worked best in the 70’s era of Hell’s Angels and Evel Knievel. So modernizing the story of Ghost Rider would require one of two things: either a sizable revamp that took today’s sensibilities into consideration or superficial glossing of old story. With the first option, you get something like Batman Begins or Spider-man. With the second, you get…Ghost Rider?
To put it simply, there’s not a whole lot going on in this movie. Kid versions of Nic Cage and Eva Mendes are teenage sweethearts, ready to run off and make the world their own in naïve puppy love. Little Nic’s pop has cancer, as subtlety hinted at through smoking-followed-by-chest-full-of-coughing. Little Nicky makes a deal with the devil, selling his soul for his pop’s health. Devil does the dastardly deed of killing off pop anyways, Nicky runs off without little Eva, and then 30 years later, flaming skulls, fighting comic-level elemental villains, and riding a bike up a skyscraper.
To boil it down into a simpler comparison, Ghost Rider is little more than a video game. You have a pretty bad opening to set the stage, you power-up to become Ghost Rider, you fight off boss villains, who conveniently represent the different elements of Water, Air, and Earth, until you finally face the lead boss villain, menacingly named Blackheart!
Moving on, next mediocre point: special effects. There is never a moment, not one second, that Ghost Rider is anything more than a CGI character. There’s never a Gollum moment, never a King Kong second, never ever. But, there are many moments when Ghost Rider moves really slow, twirling his CGI chain around like a whip, and you wonder why the B-level villains don’t move out of the way. It’s because the B-level villains are always easy to beat at the end of a stage, duh.
Acting? Not bad in any respects, but nothing to write home about. Regardless, I’ll break the rule and write about the actors anyways. Nic Cage, doing his Nic Cage thing, only with the slightest Texan drawl. He never totally flips out and does the flingy thing with his hands, which was disappointing. Eva Mendes, really not much more than a chick who wears an XS blouse with half the buttons undone. Lone bright spot belonged to Sam Elliot. He grew his mustache back, stepped into the classic mentor role so very well, then literally disappeared from the movie with the explanation of, he needed to disappear.
After all the trashing, what makes Ghost Rider worth watching? I never said it was worth watching. It’s not worth spending money on, let’s make that clear. However, if you were to find yourself sitting in the theater or at home with the DVD popped in, you wouldn’t mind it. There’s a couple chuckle moments. There’s no real awesome fight scenes, but the action isn’t so bad that it’s unwatchable. And hey, flaming skulls are still kind of a cool idea. One note, in the comics you probably mostly see Ghost Rider on his bike, or smacking people around, all mostly from the waist-up. In the movie, you see him walking around a bit, and tight leather pants on a flaming skeleton just doesn’t look that cool. They needed some baggier, lower-crotched pants. I’m sure that would have made the movie better. Out of 50 chain links, Ghost Rider hurls 20 links at your face. It’s sorta fun and mostly bearable.
