Ghost Rider (2007)

Michael Steven Johnson’s sophomore Marvel movie attempt stars Hollywood middleweight, but comic fan psychotic middleweight, Nicholas Cage as one of the most visually enticing comic character, Ghost Rider. Seriously, it’s a guy with a skull absolutely engulfed in flames, a motor cycle with flaming wheels, and he fights with a flaming chain. Just thinking about it paralyses me from awesome, so how could this go wrong?

While not a terrible movie, Ghost Rider ends up falling short on a lot of points. The one thing they did a fantastic job with is the origin, showing young Johnny Blaze, who lives with his father in a circus, selling his soul to the Devil (Mephisto, actually just a demon of a hell like dimension in the comics) to save his father from cancer, only to loose his father to a motorcycle stunt accident. The one thing they actually did better here than in the comics is they made Roxanne, the love interest, the daughter of another circus family, where in the comics Johnny is raised by Roxanne’s family after his father dies and his mother leaves, thereby giving him and Roxanne a weird brother/sister type relationship.

Years go by and Johnny becomes an Evel Knievel level stunt rider, selling out stadiums just to watch a single stunt. Yes I typed that with a straight face, but you go ahead and get your giggles out. Anyways in all that time Mephisto never came to collect, but now suddenly the moment Roxanne comes back into Johnny’s life, Mephisto’s “son,” Blackheart, decides to try and usurp daddy’s throne by taking power of a thousand corrupt souls that have been hidden since the Civil War. Also at this point it becomes confusing as to whether or not they’re trying to be an action movie or a horror movie as Blackheart is introduced walking through a barren wasteland with sudden single frame flashes of his eyes glowing red along with a quick loud noise to make people jump in their seats.

So now Mephisto comes to collect, transforming Johnny into the Ghost Rider in order to hunt down the hidden souls, or rather the scroll/contract with all of their signatures, and stop Blackheart. Blackheart sensing the awakening of the Ghost Rider recruits the aid of three elemental demons of Earth, Air and Water (sorry, not fire or heart). And here’s where things start to fall apart like a Jenga tower after five hours of drinking, but at the same time go a direction few super hero movies of this sort have.

First the good. While not happy with his new situation, Johnny doesn’t become self loathing and despondent about his new powers, instead he tries to learn, understand and control them so much so that he can access elements of them while in his human form. Kudos for that.

Now the bad. Ghost Rider stomps through all three demons without any problem. They attack him one at a time every night for three nights, and the most trouble he has is figuring out how to kill a guy made of wind, a problem that he solves in less than a minute. Until the last fight with Blackheart there is actually no real challenge for him, and even that’s mostly because they’re fighting during the day so Johnny can’t fully transform unless he’s in the shade.

Other shortcomings are Sam Elliot’s character as the Caretaker, who’s literally a caretaker of a cemetery and turns out to be [drum role] the previous Ghost Rider who was also a cowboy making this Sam Elliot’s *1,000 time playing a cowboy. (*this number is in no way accurate and is used for joke purposes only. A fact though is that Sam Elliot is awesome) The shortcoming actually comes at the end when the Caretaker transforms into his Ghost Rider form, complete with horse that leaves a fire trail like the Fire Mares in Krull, for one final ride to lead Johnny to Blackheart. After leading Johnny to a church, he turns back into his human form and rides off, presumably fading and going to heaven (or hell, I’m not sure as that whole thing is very vague). He doesn’t stay to help and fight or anything. Lame.

Then there’s Ghost Rider in general. It feels like their hands were really tied with budgeting the special effects because he really has no personality. He just kind of shows up, rides around, fights for a couple seconds then transforms back into Johnny. While I can only imagine how hard it is to inject personality into a skull that can’t really express emotion, the producers should have considered that before green lighting the project.

And lastly, the end just doesn’t make any sense what so ever. Blackheart is defeated but the souls are basically unaccounted for. Technically they should still be out and about in the world but no one seems to think that that’s a bad thing. Also Mephisto shows up to congratulate Johnny on a job well done, blah blah blah, you’ll serve me well in the future, blah blah standard set up to Johnny saying basically, I’m going to use these powers to fight you from now on. So why doesn’t Mephisto just take them back?

Extended Cut Note: It exists, but I haven’t seen it, nor do I know anyone who has. However it only has 9 extra minutes so I can’t imagine it being any better.

Marvel Movie Score: 4.5

Why That?: I could watch it again. The problems don’t hammer you over the head that much, the acting is good, and all in all it’s descent. However I believe this movie shows that Mark Steven Johnson should stick to directing. As much as I respect movies that are written and directed by the same person, his writing is still pretty weak while the visuals are very sharp and perfect for what he’s trying to do. Also for those of you who enjoy crazy like I do, rent this and watch the special features for a new found appreciation for Cage’s insanity.