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Overall Rating : 3.5/10
Directed By : Mark Steven Johnson
Nicolas Cage (The Wicker Man (2006) )
Peter Fonda (Wild Hogs)
Wes Bentley (American Beauty)
Eva Mendes (2 Fast 2 Furious)
Supplied By : Sony Pictures
Film Reviewed By : Rick L. Blalock
Date Reviewed : Jun. 5, 2007
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| PLOT Johnny Blaze was only a teenaged stunt biker when he sold his soul to the devil. Years later, Johnny is a world renowned daredevil by day, but at night, he becomes the Ghost Rider of Marvel Comics legend. The devil’s bounty hunter, he is charged with finding evil souls on earth and bringing them to hell. But when a twist of fate brings Johnny’s long-lost love back into his life, Johnny realizes he just might have a second chance at happiness—if he can beat the devil and win back his soul. To do so he’ll have to defeat Blackheart, the devil’s nemesis and wayward son, whose plot to take over his father’s realm will bring hell on earth—unless Ghost Rider can stop him. |
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| THE REVIEW In GHOST RIDER, we meet Johnny Blaze, a young daredevil whom performs stunts as an act with his Father Barton at various carnivals. To Johnny, his Father is all he has(aside from a girl that he likes named Roxanne). so when he finds out that his dad has kept quiet about how he has been diagnosed with cancer, Johnny is caught up in shock. So when a strange man shows up and says he can cure his illness, for a price of course. The man tells Johnny that it would cost him his soul, and that he would later owe him, and when needed the man would return to collect. Well the said man, just so happens to be the Devil or "Mephistopheles" as he is known in the film. The deal he made with the naive Johnny was nothing but a ploy as the next day, sure his Dad would be healed, but Mephistopheles would later cause Barton to die in a fiery stunt gone wrong. Heartbroken by the loss of his Father, Blaze would leave town and leave the love of his life Roxanne for what he thought would be forever. But this would all change when he and Roxanne, who is now a new reporter would again meet up. The two begin to rekindle old feelings for one another, but just when things get interesting, Mephistopheles returns to collect on the deal made years ago. He has chosen Johnny to be his Ghost Rider to punish and collect the evil souls for him on earth and return them to hell(and from then on out, during the day he would live normally, but at night he would transform into somewhat of a monster with a flaming skull face.) This would prove to be the easiest task for Blaze as an even bigger challenge would await him in the form of a being named "Blackheart" whom happens to be the son of Mephistopheles, the Devil. Blackheart despises his Father and looks to conquer him as well as the world. Blackheart and his minions set out to find, a contract in which a previous Ghost Rider had stolen from his Father because within it lie spirits for to evil for Mephistopheles to ever release onto the world - Blackheart, of course believes that once these spirits control him, he will not be defeated. To stop his son from completing this mission Mephistopheles calls on Blaze, promising him, should he defeat Blackheart, the curse shall be lifted, allowing him to enjoy a normal life with his true love - but it won't be easy as many obstacles would stand in the way. With GHOST RIDER, Director Mark Steven Johnson, makes this his 3rd comic to big screen project to be involved in(Directing DAREDEVIL and then of course having created some of the characters for the ELEKTRA adaptation). None of then managed to make a mark at the box-office, and were decent, but I must say GHOST RIDER has to be the worst out of those 3 mentioned and almost out of the new generation comic book flicks next to THE HULK of course. Personally I liked DAREDEVIL myself, and like DAREDEVIL, GHOST RIDER starts with a brief prologue of a young Johnny Blaze, showing just how this dreaded deal with the devil that would change his life forever came to be. The set up was that his dad has cancer and he makes the deal in order to save him. However no emphasis was then displayed on the illness there was no drama or meaning implied to make us realize just how much of a sacrifice Johnny would be making, at this rate it could've been changed to Johnny's dad having only a cold, and still it would have meant just about as much to the story. Even with the weak meaningless buildup, the story moves on, where Johnny is now grown to be in what I believe to be his mid twenties to early 30's, but with Nicolas Cage whom is in his 40's portraying Blaze, it's hard to believe. I have never read any of the GHOST RIDER comics, are have read any comics regularly for that matter, so, i'm not familiar enough with the GHOST RIDER story to testify just how accurate the film is. But I will say for a film that starts off on a fairly serious note, it soon declines(post older Blaze appearing) into somewhat of a comic book comedy so to speak. Being based on a comic book isn't necessarily a bad thing, but when the action feels like the pages of a hokey comic book, it's definitely a problem. While watching this film I kept wondering to myself, what audience the filmmakers were targeting for this one, With a younger crowd, this film might be seen as enjoyable, but for the ones whom are older with higher IQs, they are not likely to get over just how bad that CGI skull looks. The scenes in which Johnny Blaze is Ghost Rider were very painful to watch and awfully unrealistic, the character meant to be intense and unrelenting shows little of the attitude he is presumed to have - and for me it just didn't work. Nicolas Cage, said to be a huge comic book fan(and particularly with GHOST RIDER), was proud to take on this role, in which he was far too old to portray in the first place. Here to make up for nature's course, Cage puts on a show of acting the younger, hip and cool part....but in the end it's about the equivalent of your dad waking up one day and deciding that he can be hip. I just didn't relate to the older Johnny Blaze portrayal at all, because, again, it didn't seem real to me, I couldn't take Nicolas Cage serious in this role, maybe he had fun, and maybe he could let it all out the window here, I wish I could say I had as much fun watching him as Blaze, but I just didn't. Playing the Girlfriend of Johnny Blaze, was actually the much younger than Cage, Eva Mendes. I usually like Mendes' acting, but here you can just tell that she felt awkward and out of place, the chemistry between the two characters didn't seem natural, and Mendes, didn't know how to really handle the film's comedy that well in my opinion. Peter Fonda was surprisingly good as Mephistopheles, although I couldn't picture him as such character at first, he really pulled it off. I have to say I really wasn't too impressed with the Blackheart character, I feel that he wasn't menacing or had enough of a presence, he seemed to be overshadowed by the minion characters. The character I liked the most here was the caretaker, played by Sam Elliot. I have seen Elliot in a lot of Western themed stuff and here he is able to play off of that a little. The Caretaker works in a Graveyard(for reasons that would be later revealed). and right off the bat he seems to know about just whom Johnny is - they have sort of like a Blade/Whistler bond. As I see, some GHOST RIDER fans actually liked this film, perhaps because they are more familiar with the Character. I have never been a fan, and I was there was more I could add to this review, but I am reviewing movie-wise here. And as for the movie it does have a few funny moments, but I felt the portrayals were too unrealistic, not to mention the film was paced too slow.....(and now with this extend cut, it's 9 minutes slower) The 2 disc DVD set has 3 Documentaries : "Spirit of Vengeance", "Spirit of Adventure", and "Spirit of Execution". Plus "Sin and Salvation : Featurettes chronicling 40 Years of GHOST RIDER Comic Book History", and Animatics. | ||||
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| GORE
METER 1/10 not really gory, but there are a few scenes in which a couple of Blackheart's victims are disintegrated into brimstone. |
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| MUSICAL
SCORE 4.5/10 The music is good in the film for the most part with tracks from Ozzy Osborne, ZZ-Top and The Carpenter's played, and for the rest of the film, there is a very suspenseful score orchestrated by Christopher Young. |
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| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM Honestly, when I got this is my mailbox, I was quite excited to see it. I figured that I might like it, but with Nicolas Cage in the lead, I had some doubts. The doubts became a reality, when I realized that I was not going to be able to take this film seriously, as this is a film that Cage would've been perfect for back when he was doing film's like RUMBLE FISH-but not now, he's just not convincing enough in the part at his age. GHOST RIDER obviously won't be for everyone, some will like it and some won't, it just wasn't what I expected, that's for sure This DVD will be released on June 12, 2007 |
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