Ghost Rider (DVD)

...presence of evil he becomes Ghost Rider, complete with flaming skull and demonic bike. He has to give up all that he holds dear, including the love of his life. Then the horned one’s son Blackheart turns up determined to create a new hell on earth and it’s up to Johnny to stop him.

Had I known that this film was written and directed by the man responsible for “Daredevil” and “Elektra” I think I would have given it a wide berth. Mark ...
...The worst offender is the Ghost Rider himself who is about as convincing as Teletubby playing pope. Even the motorcycle stunts lack excitement and the make-up for the dead and undead alike is appalling. You can’t buy into the world of the comic book because it isn’t realistic enough, especially when so many of the backdrops are obviously poorly dressed soundstages. Then there’s the small matter of the acting; it appears Johnson has been pressing ... more

As a teenager, motorbike stunt rider Johnny Blaze sells his soul to Mephistopheles in order to save his father’s life. But he pays a greater price than he could have imagined, being made into the devil’s own bounty hunter. At night, in the presence of evil he becomes Ghost Rider, complete with flaming skull and demonic bike. He has to give up all that he holds dear, including the love of his life. Then the horned one’s son Blackheart turns up determined to create a new hell on earth and it’s up to Johnny to stop him.

Had I known that this film was written and directed by the man responsible for “Daredevil” and “Elektra” I think I would have given it a wide berth. Mark Steven Johnson is hardly king of narrative coherence and directs like a child that has had one too many Panda Pops. I suppose the film at least starts as it means to go on; with nosebleed edited series of baffling images that fail to attain any level of clarity despite the voice-over narration. Then it’s on to some loud and ludicrous opening titles that set the very low standard for movie’s special effects. It’s an attempt at style over substance filmmaking that fails because the director doesn’t pay enough attention to detail and hasn’t got a big enough budget to make the effects look good. He has no idea how to build tension, seeming to believe that throwing in bucket-loads of portentous thunder and lightning, a few skull-faced reflections and having his villains in billowing, floor-length black cloaks makes the story scary. It doesn’t.

His pacing is way off and he has no idea how to create atmosphere. The love story aspect is too sickly sweet and hackneyed to be believable and the so-called horror threads lack bite or scares of any type. There’s no build up to any of the fights or big action set pieces, so they appear to come from nowhere and do nothing but highlight the myriad plot holes. That being said, many of the attacks are predictable in the extreme. None of the bad guys look creepy enough and Johnson’s reliance on CGI is misplaced because what is there is of such poor quality. From crappy flaming eyes that look like dodgy contact lenses to the naff vocoder voice effects and the very obvious way Nicolas Cage’s head has been roughly pasted onto his stunt double’s body it all feels cheap and tacky. The worst offender is the Ghost Rider himself who is about as convincing as Teletubby playing pope. Even the motorcycle stunts lack excitement and the make-up for the dead and undead alike is appalling. You can’t buy into the world of the comic book because it isn’t realistic enough, especially when so many of the backdrops are obviously poorly dressed soundstages. Then there’s the small matter of the acting; it appears Johnson has been pressing his players to make everything bigger and more cartoonish, believing this more appropriate to a comic book adaptation. The result is a series of dreadful, fake performances that lack any sense of truth or depth. Combined with a paper-thin story, this makes for a frustrating and unappetising hundred and fourteen minutes.

Johnson’s screenplay is a load of nonsensical tripe that will probably only make sense to the most hardcore “Ghost Rider” fans. Johnny Blaze’s back-story feels like it’s been stolen from a soap opera (dead mother, terminally ill father, a first love whose family don’t approve of the match). It’s trite, so you don’t empathise with him, particularly as he seems so keen to sign over his soul to the devil. That’s the problem with the whole film; everything feels too easy. Blaze has no gumption and he blithely does as he’s told by Mephistopheles, before taking control of his new found powers within a matter of hours. His team and supporters are too willing to believe his luck despite a series of clearly fatal accidents. When one of his friends dies because of him, he doesn’t mourn his death and Roxanne is too eager to forgive him for repeatedly leaving her in the lurch. Blackheart’s elemental thugs helpfully only attack him one at a time and are surprisingly easy to defeat, as is the main villain. If you think that sounds bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet because there is a plethora of plot holes to consider on top of that. We’re told Blackheart can’t enter the cemetery because it’s holy ground, but he later goes into a church. There’s a lot of nonsensical guff about hell’s hierarchy and the whole concept of the Ghost Rider makes no sense. Why would the devil need a bounty hunter when he can go wherever he likes to collect people’s souls?

The characterisation throughout is pathetic, the only person we get to know in any measure is Johnny and he really isn’t that interesting. All we learn is that he’s obsessed with motorbikes and reads lots of cabbalistic texts. There’s no depth to his relationship with his father or Roxanne and no great conflict that would drive him to sign a deal with the devil as his first recourse. Roxanne is essentially a damsel in distress with a sideline in journalism. The devil’s a bureaucrat in a long coat and his son a snotty upstart. The dialogue shifts between sickly proclamations of love and comic book conversations that probably look okay on paper but sound stupid in real life.

Ever since Nicolas Cage won the Oscar for “Leaving Las Vegas” it feels like he’s decided he’s paid his dues and now just turns up for the paycheque. That’s especially true here where the character he’s playing is a computer graphic half the time. He’s way too old for the part of Johnny Blaze anyway and attempts to make him appear younger with a dodgy wig make him look plain silly. But he looks even dafter when his grinning head has been pasted onto someone else’s body for the stunts. He spends most of his time manically mugging or frowning as a substitute for emoting. His timing’s okayish but there’s little he can do with the appalling script. His relationship with his female co-star is laughable because of the astounding lack of sexual chemistry between them.

Eva Mendes used to be able to act, but as love interest Roxanne she is stilted at best. She’s an overacting buxom damsel in distress who never rises above plot device status. Peter Fonda cashes in on his living legend status as Mephistopheles. He passes the time squinting into the distance as if reading his lines from an autocue somewhere over his co-stars’ shoulders. Wes Bentley is a complete waste of space as bad guy Blackheart. He’s just some pasty faced goth, who thinks his bad eye make-up and big coat make him menacing. Sam Elliott coasts by on his drawling delivery and vaguely western charm as the plot device Caretaker, whose sole job is to explain everything to the audience and characters.

Christopher Young’s score alternates between overblown superhero themes with pretensions to the epic and rock themes. The only thing they have in common is that they are loud and intrusive. If we aren’t being bombarded by heroic brass complete with choral spikes and kettle drums, it’s hillbilly rock or metallic percussion and electric versions of western themes. This sits cheek by jowl with The Carpenters and the worst version of “Ghost Riders in the Sky” you’ll have heard.

“Ghost Rider” is a dreadful film that should be shunned by everyone because of its utter shoddiness. The writing is pitiful, the direction seriously misguided and the performances thoroughly abysmal. It doesn’t even have decent effects or stunts to fall back on. It feels like a random series of graphic novel panels thrown together without any regard for little things like story or originality. Unless you’re easily distracted by flashing pictures, there is nothing here you could refer to as entertainment 

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