Today, we're racing with the devil with...
Nicholas Cage stars as the same kooky, off-beat character he's played in countless other films. This time, he's called Johnny Blaze, a motorcycle stuntman who sold his soul to the devil (Peter Fonda) to save his dad when he was a kid. Now, the devil has come to collect, turning Blaze into his personal bounty hunter- with a flaming skull and motorcycle- to retrieve an artifact from the devil's wayward son, Blackheart (Wes Bentley). Along the way, a mysterious caretaker (Sam Elliot) shows him the ropes at being a "rider", and an old girlfriend (played by Eva Mendes), re-enters his life... and offers little other use in the story.
I tried really hard to really like it, but Ghost Rider is merely okay. I've always been a fan of the Ghost Rider character and the imagery of the comic. The problem I have with the film is that it is way too big and polished for me to consider it a good adaptation.
First off, it stars Nicholas Cage. I have nothing against Cage. He's kind of a joke nowadays, but he's an interesting character. However, he's a star (or at least he still was at the point of this movie) and he's there more to sell the movie than portray Johnny Blaze. It's not the hard-living Blaze of the comic; it's the same type of persona we've seen him do in so many pictures, just a bit more subdued. Phone it in, maybe? Perhaps that, too. In addition, Cage's sensibility adds a humorous tone that conflicts with the hellish imagery.
Second, there is a strong pulp element to the comic that has all been crushed by the movie. One would think with motorcycles, stuntmen, and Peter Fonda that director Mark Steven Johnson would imagine Ghost Rider as a throwback to 70s films such as Vanishing Point and Race with the devil. Instead, the movie is just like most superhero pictures of the '00s. Let me guess, origin story? Congratulations; you get a Coke, Smithers. The film employs as much production value as did Johnson's last foray into superheroes. It's not just Ghost Rider and Blackheart's crew that are visual effects, the film itself is soaked with so much CGI, digital editing, and coloring. And sequences like the police chase seem to exist in the picture to show off more of the budget.
Whenever the Ghost Rider appears or whenever western tropes are present, that's where I enjoy the movie. Plus, the cover of Johnny Cash's "Ghost Riders in the Sky" by Aussie outfit, Spiderbait, rips. Outside of that, Ghost Rider is rather uninspired and a betrayal of the source material. The sense I get from watching the movie now is that Columbia wanted another franchise like Spider-Man and it didn't matter what the comic was.
Ghost Rider
2 1/2 out of 5 Cap shields
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