Movie Review: Ghost Rider

I gave up watching videos because I worked at a video store and had seen everything.
I started working at a movie theatre, for I wanted to see more movies.
I got rid of my NetFlix, for I got to see everything I wanted.
Then there was Ghost Rider. I wasn't renting movies, but for any readers of my blog know, this is a genre of film that my partner and I adore and love to abhor--super hero movies. Growing up the geeks we are, this style of film became popular just as our life started together.
Then there was the evitable fallout. Too much of a good thing, they say, brings about sequels and bad movies.
Bowing to the almighty dollar the studios knew they had something in those Spiderman and X-Men titles. People were lining up to buy tickets.
Worse, actors, especially male actors, have always wanted to done a cape and fly.
Heck, it is the motivation to why my better half and I can donate 15 hours a week to City of Heroes. For an hour every night, we can put on (digital) costumes and fly about saving the world from unhinged evil. No tight underpants; no strange looks.
Ghost Rider starts Nick Cage, who was once promised to be Superman in Superman Returns--especially if comedic wunderkind Kevin Smith was going to take the helm. Kevin got smart--he makes comedies and heroes of a different sort, even if he is a comic book fanboy. But Cage must have been hurt--for someone green lighted it.
Shakespeare once asked us to "suspend disbelief." In that, we need to pause our thinking, critical minds and actually sit back and give the show a chance. I’m more then willing. I knew Pirates 3 was bad, but I still wanted to watch. But Ghost Rider is such a glaringly bad picture; the holes in plot and filmmaking are as glaring as an open wound. Think of it as driving by a particularly bad car wreck. You don’t want to slow down; you hope the body isn’t close to your lane. But as soon as you drive past *poof* you slow down and gander.
Certainly the tale isn’t very original. Devil finds a patsy willing to make a deal for his dying father’s life—you know, the selling souls bit. Yeah, you’ve not heard that one, have you. At what point are people going to learn this is a stunt by the Devil and the payoff has yet to be successful? Anyhow, Johnny Blaze signs the papers and gains immortality. See, the Devil has other purposes for him and need to keep him alive.
Now what part of inspired casting does show up here—Peter Fonda as the Devil. Think about it. He started motorcycle anti-establishment craze with his friend Jack Nicholson in Easy Rider. Now he’s the Devil with a Harley. Works for me.
But it can’t sustain me for an hour and half.
So Johnny becomes the Devil’s pet and get to collect souls that are ready to head to hell. Now they are already bad, so I guess Blaze doesn’t have a problem. Of course, the Devil has been collecting souls for eons, one would wonder why he would need help—so to remove this problem, it seems Evil’s son is attempting a coup de grace over his father with the help of some other demons.
Okay, I’ll buy that. Evil becoming just like his dad, let’s give him come credit.
Now comes the McGuffin—several souls have signed a paper in blood in exchange for something. We don’t know what, but the paper exists. And the previous ‘Rider’ hid said paper to make sure the Devil would never gain its power.
So immortality and absolute ability to bend the world to evil existence needs MORE power?
And that the previous “Rider” hid the paper somewhere in a cemetery, so the Devil can’t reach it.
Ah, huh? Isn’t the cemetery like a supermarket for evil and soul collecting?
And you are beginning to see—the problems of this movie begin to pile up, one on another and bring the title down by sheer weight.
Worse, there’s no sense of fun at all. Early, Cage uses his gift for comedy briefly and I sighed, hoping that his laughter could turn this movie into something slightly more light. No can do. He also becomes all Serious with Righteousness and begins to hammer more nails into the coffin of this movie.
Too often then not, we critics slam the movie but offer precious little advice to how to avoid all of these pitfalls in a storyline. Well, here’s my idea for this movie. Sure, keep the signing of the contract with the Devil but have him not always cheating death, but instead doing quite well. Have him an avid church-goer trying to cleanse himself of sins left and right. Have him donating thousands to children.
Finally, disaster happens and Blaze finds himself on death’s door.
The Devil finally arrives.
I need you to get a particularly bad soul for me.
Seems there’s a horrid, evil killer who the police have shot at and various others have tried to stop.
Ghost Rider tries but also cannot get to him.
So it begins—seems that special soul is actually Evil’s son.
See? Wasn’t that more interesting? I think so. I’d go see it.