Ghost Rider
Tuesday, 06 Mar 2007 11:05
Nicolas Cage in Ghost Rider
Directed by Mark Steven Johnson, out at cinemas now, starring Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Wes Bentley, Sam Elliott, running time 117 minutes.
In a nutshell…
Explosions, bikes, leather and demons.
What's it all about?
Texan stunt rider Johnny Blaze is tricked into selling his soul to the devil, an enjoyably slimy performance by Peter Fonda, in order to save the life of his father. Years later, Mephistopheles arrives to collect his prize, and transforms Johnny into the Ghost Rider, "the devil's bounty hunter", doomed to ride forever on a mission to collect evil souls.
All is not well in the underworld, however, and Mephistopheles' even-more-evil son Blackheart has a plan to usurp his father. The Rider is tasked to track down Blackheart and send him back to hell. If he succeeds, he wins back his soul. Fail, and hell itself will be unleashed on the world.
Who's in it?
Nicolas Cage is a well-publicised lover of motorbikes and a long-term fan of the Ghost Rider character – in fact the makeup team had to paint out his real-life Ghost Rider tattoo before filming. He's having enormous fun, and it shows. Looking more than comfortable on the low-slung Harley ridden by the eponymous hero, Cage brings an endearing mixture of manic energy and melancholy to the role.
Eva Mendes, however, is something of a disappointment as Johnny's long-lost lover Roxanne Simpson, and there's little chemistry between the pair.
An honourable mention goes to the gravel-voiced Sam Elliott as an enigmatic cemetery caretaker who becomes Johnny Blaze's mentor, explaining the legend of the Ghost Rider to his young protegee.
As an example…
"You. Guilty. Your soul is stained by the blood of innocents." The Rider unleashes his 'penance stare', forcing evildoers to relive the pain of their victims.
"You can't live in fear." Johnny Blaze prepares himself for another death-defying stunt.
Likelihood of a trip to the Oscars
It's a big, fun popcorn movie with little to lift it above others in the genre. Critics are divided over this one, but all agree that the film is hardly Oscar material.
What the others say
"Johnson has unapologetically set out to make a loud, living comic book, set in a world where lovers meet by a big oak tree and people say things like, 'I'm going to go where the road takes me,' with a straight face. While the end product may not be to everyone's taste, you can't say that he hasn't hit what he was aiming at." – empireonline.com
"The comic touches are lovely, but the plot is as corny as a country and western song." - Times online
So is it any good?
Given that the film's release was delayed by a year in order to give the post-production team more time to work on the CGI effects of the flaming-skulled hero and his hellish bike, it's strange to see so little made of his confrontations with Blackheart's demonic henchmen.
Ghost Rider falls prey to poor editing decisions – there's an unnecessarily long prologue in which Matt Long as the young Johnny Blaze fails to invest the character with any emotion whatsoever, and the fight scenes could happily have been stretched out.
Ghost Rider ranks rather low on the scale on comic book adaptations of recent years. It's never as stylish as Constantine or as atmospheric as Batman Begins, and lacks any of the emotional punch that made the X-Men trilogy and the Spiderman series memorable.
In essence this is a big, brash, popcorn movie, and its release here in the slow season of February is somewhat puzzling. It's summer fare, and a guilty pleasure but a pleasure nonetheless.
6 /10
Rebecca Malings
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