Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance aka Ghost Rider 2 is a sequel that weakly promised it would be better than Ghost Rider which offered the promise of Nicholas Cage in a quirky role in a movie that maybe, just maybe would do for Cage what Iron Man did for Robert Downey Jr.

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I didn’t see Ghost Rider. I asked people if it was awful, and the assured me it was. I asked if Cage was at least interesting and fun (as in Vampire’s Kiss or The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call-New Orleans) and they told me that in a few scenes he was interesting but it was an utter waste of time.

The Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance was co-written Scott M. Gimple ,Seth Hoffman, and David S. Goyer (Goyer got original story credit and is one of the writers of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight series). There was a new directing team assigned to the sequel : (Mark)Neveldine and (Brian)Taylor (who’s best credit is CRANK—an above average action movie). The charismatic Idris Elba who did an incredible job playing Stringer Bell in The Wire and is an interesting actor to watch (even in the over-praised British series LUTHER) has a large supporting role. Ciaran Hinds another interesting actor (you’ll know him when you see him) has a supporting role; and Nicholas Cage insisted on the movie being darker than the first one. Also in the cast is Christopher Lambert playing a small supporting role, Johnny Whitworth and Violante Placido.

So… yes, I wondered if it was possible that Ghost Rider 2 could possibly be any good. The reviews however were negative. Nobody I knew seemed to like this sequel and I wasn’t going to bother watching it, until my step-son said it probably isn’t any good but let’s watch it.

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It stinks. Apparently Cage made some sort of deal with the devil in regards to the movies he appears in forcing him to make really terrible choices over and over again. What’s his batting average? 1 in 4 movies he makes is almost worth watching?

Worse, there really is a potential throughout this thing that at least a very fun baaad movie and at best an enjoyable guilty pleasure could have been made. I mean if Roger Corman produced it, there’d be 4 or 5 of these things made for what they spent on this one—it wouldn’t look much different and it would be more fun. Anyway: A truly dreadful script, mediocre special effects, mechanical direction and inconsistent performances make this one a real chore to sit through. Since it was fairly short (95 minutes) and I figured I would write a review about it, I did sit through it and regret wasting my time doing so. My step-son thought it was worthless also.

Cage’s performance (resembling a more intense William Shatner styled cadence but with added stylized whispering, pauses and then screamed lines) is at times interesting. He does have some great line readings but rarely are the lines he utters worth paying attention to. There are a few genuinely bizarre moments, but too few to recommend a viewing for this reason.

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Cage plays Johnny Blaze the motorcycle stunt driver who thought he could save his cancer-ridden father by making a deal with the devil which winds up turning him into a flaming, maniacal, soul-sucking motorcycle-riding demon with a flaming skull head every-time there are evil or sinful people near him. The effect could have been really cool but sort of looks like a slightly augmented travelling carnival skeleton head with CGI added flames around it. Cage is sort of an updated Larry Talbot/Wolfman and Bruce Banner/Incredible Hulk who tries to resist turning into the demon Ghost Rider because he doesn’t want to hurt fairly innocent people or do the devil’s work. So he’s basically isolated himself and is in hiding.

(Minor but no Major spoilers ahead)
But Blaze can’t hide from the wine loving French priest and bounty hunter Moreau (Idris Elba) who’s working on behalf of a mysterious sect of the Catholic church. The monks are trying to find a young boy named Danny (Fergus Riordan) who is on the run with her mother Nadya (Violante Pacido) who are being chased by some goons who have a remarkable array of military weapons who have been hired by Roarke (Ciaran Hinds)to get the young Danny (alive). Roarke we realize almost as soon as we see him is the devil or at least a high ranking demonic emissary who’s trying to set up the end of the world (I think…not quite sure though). Blaze doesn’t want to help, doesn’t like turning into Ghost Rider but is assured by Moreau that the monks have taught him how to break Blaze’s contract with the devil and free him from his Ghost Rider curse. He’ll scratch Blaze’s back if Blaze scratches his.

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Blaze at first can feel and track where Danny is but he’s not successful in his first attempt at defeating the bad guys and keeping Danny safe. The staging of the action scenes are ridiculous and there’s little logic to what’s going on. This means we’re utterly uninvolved watching visuals and effects where weapons are fire, things blow up but cause and effect varies. And then through a plot complication… Blaze can’t track Danny and they have tracked him the old fashioned way…..and then… aargh… forget it…

An almost interesting twist has a character being brought back to life by the devil and given the power to rapidly decay anything that this character touches. He touches most food and it decays within seconds (except Twinkies) but how he can touch some things causing rapid decay and yet touches other things and drives a truck (which somehow doesn’t decay) is never explained. (A potential additional joke would have the character driving a V.W.). I mean if somehow he learns to control the power…okay… but we aren’t shown this at all. Obviously making sense or coming up with some sort of alternate logic isn’t important to the writer, director, producer or actors of this film—and if the audience watching this junk happens to care.. too bad for them. I think in the comics this character is Blackout.

The 10 minutes of stuff that might actually be worth watching in this otherwise worthless odorous time-waster isn’t good enough to even take the time to watch a few scenes and be done with it.

Edit: I read some favorable capsule reviews for this over at Amazon as I finished this review. Assuming these people weren’t paid to review this thing, I have no idea how anyone would enjoy this movie enough to recommend it. Don’t say I didn’t try and warn you.

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One of the worst, worthless, time-wasting movies I’ve seen in the last couple of years. Ghost Rider 2 could have been worthwhile if anyone connected with it was remotely interested in making a film that might entertain the audience. A 5 year old might not be totally bored because there’s quite a lot of action….but the violence and mayhem makes it absolutely inappropriate for a 5 year old to be watching it.