Over the last decade we’ve seen a bevy of quality comic book movies spill into the mainstream markets for movie-goer consumption. Starting with Blade and continuing on to the most recent 300, these flicks have ranged from Spandex-clad adventures with Spider-Man to down and dirty crime sprees with the cut throats from Sin City. They’ve varied from the popcorn bleeding four-color action of Fantastic Four and Superman Returns to the near-art crime tales of Road to Perdition and A History of Violence to the heart-felt humor and real life emotions of Ghost World and American Splendor. Not bad for a medium that was almost fatally castrated by Joel “Patterns his life after Divine of Pink Flamingos” Schumacher and the rusty, penis hungry pair of scissors known as Batman & Robin…
The success of these adaptations have varied greatly from hits to misses and the status of each often comes down to who you believe more; the critics, the fans or the box office receipts. Where does Ghost Rider land on the scale? Well, critically it was more or less reviled, fan wise it was average, and box office wise, well, if you go by the definition I was always told in that anything that grosses over $100 million qualifies as a “blockbuster”, you’d have to call Ghost Rider a blockbuster. Shit, it had an opening weekend of $55 million, it’s been out for over a month and in that time it sat at #1 for two weeks, dropped down to #2 for a week and still sits comfortably at #4 as of this review. Not too shabby for a flick that was pushed back numerous times by the studio and was feared to be a major stinker by all accounts. But most importantly, what did I think of it?
Here’s a quick synopsis: Johnny Blaze was born and raised as a carnie. By the age of 17 he had become part of the carnival show itself, doing a father-son motorcycle stunt show with his dad Bart and falling in love with a girl named Roxanne Simpson. One night, after dad’s passed out, John discovers that poppa Bart has terminal cancer and has been hiding this little tidbit from his son. Later that same night, a mysterious stranger with a decidedly demonic shadow appears from nowhere and offers to fix Barton’s cancer for the price of John’s soul. Never officially agreeing to the offer, the deal is sealed anyway when John gets a wicked paper cut and a drop of his blood falls to the signature line on the contract. Oh well, whether free will or complete accident, a soul’s a soul for Satan, right? And so, Barton’s cancer clears up the next day and he’s fit as a fiddle and ready to ride through those rings of fire again! And this is when Mephistopheles kills the old man via “accident” and destroys young Johnny’s life. Not willing to let the lad kill himself though, Meph sees to it that Johnny doesn’t come to harm for the next 10 or 20 years, till he decides he needs the services of Mr. Blaze for his own agenda… and you know that guys like Old Scratch are always pricks about collecting on their debts.
Over the course of those 10 or 20 years (I don’t think we’re given an exact time frame here…), Johnny becomes a world class motorcycle stunt rider a la Evil Knievel while Roxanne has turned into a reporter and, worst of all, *shudder* Eva Mendes of all people. Barf. Oh yeah, and the two live in Dallas. Barf x2. Of course they wind up re-connecting, just in time for Mephisto to come moonwalking back into JB’s life. Seems that the Superbeast’s son Blackheart is out to take daddy’s throne and he plans to do so by claiming the souls of San Venganza (not exactly a subtle *wink*wink* that this happens to translate into “St. Vengeance”), a small town whose 1000 occupants were all swindled by Meph a long long time ago (in a galaxy far away…) into giving up their souls for their corrupted hearts’ desires. The contract for the townsfolk was hidden by Meph’s last spirit of vengeance, a glorified demonic bounty hunter called the Ghost Rider who decided to buck the boss’s orders and deny him the souls of San Venganza. As such, Blackheart and a trio of elemental demon henchmen (made of water, wind and dirt) plan to find the contract and bring Hell to Earth. How’s Big Poppa M gonna prevent this? Well, being the Lord of Hell you’d think he could just snub out the faggy little “homeless Goth chic” quartet, but instead he comes knocking on Blaze’s door for the repayment… and turns him into the flaming skulled equivalent of Randall Cobb circa Raising Arizona… another of the new Nic Cage movies I don’t hate ironically enough.
The rest of movie consists of Blaze learning how to handle his new demonic powers, getting the typical “tutored by his aged predecessor” lessons from former Rider turned cemetery caretaker (played by always awesomely grizzled and mustached Sam Elliot), trying to hook up with the cleavage vomiting ex-girlfriend, and battling the forces of darkness. Standard super hero fare and all done with more fun than professionalism, to which I’m not complaining.
Break it down: the acting was okay. Cage plays the role with a giddy innocence and man-childishness that you’d expect from a fan boy starring in a comic book movie. In case you didn’t pick up this tidbit, Nic’s a big comic geek and takes his stage name of “Cage” from the Marvel superhero of the same name. He had one of the baddest ass comic collections in the history of comic collections before Lisa Marie made him sell it all, and I should know because I worked for the mail order company that put much of that collection together… and actually mailed the man numerous books to try and lure him back into the four color trap during my three years with the place. Sam Elliot always looks like he’s having fun with his parts and that’s no different here. Who couldn’t have fun with a character who’s an old skool cowboy with a flaming skull!? Peter Fonda was passable as the fork tongued Mephisto, though his presence is more for coolness factor than his ability to pretend he’s the source of all evil. Wes Bentley does cheesy evil well as Blackheart and Donal Logue was his usual goofy fun-ass self as Johnny’s best friend and stunt crew leader. Mendes couldn’t act her way out of a soggy burrito, but at least you can stare at her chesticles and try to figure out if they’re real or not while she’s on camera, since there isn’t a single scene where they’re not being thrust at your face.
The special effects were pretty damn good as far as I’m concerned. You actually start to think that the movie really was delayed to the team could touch up the airbrush work on the centerfold before going to the newsstand instead of the popular rumor that the studio panned it for being too craptacular and wanted to wait and release it at a time of the year where the competition wouldn’t be very, well, competitive. A flaming skull is one of the hardest effects you can transfer believably onto the screen without actually lighting Nic Cage’s head on fire (which I was all for), so I’m very happy with what we do get here. Johnny’s first transformation sequence was probably the high point. The story was nothing if not paint-by-numbers and there are a few tweaks to the original comic book origin that I wasn’t a fan of (Barton’s fate and the whole "Blaze gives up his soul willingly becomes Blaze gets cheated out of his soul" thing being the biggest), though at the same time there were a couple of changes I actually preferred (how Blaze actually becomes the spirit of vengeance for one), so it all balances out in the end. The dialogue was nothing special and the numerous puns had me groaning in the fourth grade (Caretaker refers to Blaze as “bonehead”) let alone in my current anti-social hate-filled late-twenties state.
The best scene was right before the big demonic finale rumble, in which the Caretaker sheds his human existence one last time, becoming the Ghost Rider of old and racing across the desert aboard his flaming zombie death horse alongside his protégé while the soundtrack races with them. Awesome. Overall it’s goofy, eye candy fun. If you go into expecting something serious, you’ve only got yourself to blame when you go onto the message boards afterwards to try and flex that dictionary brain of yours in all the ways it manages to “insult your intelligence”. Kinda sad when you claim to be so damn brilliant, but your big swollen grey matter is so easily hurt by something as simple as a movie that you had no right to expect anything out of in the first place. My Evil Dead Bride is literally one of, if not the smartest woman I know and you know what? She only went to the movie to appease me, but actually left the theater enjoying it more than I did… and her loathing for Eva Mendes and Nicholas Cage are legendary. Am I right in saying that my opinion of it is better than yours? No, because I’m not an elitist cock snot with any reason to think my opinions are any more right or wrong than anyone else’s. Am I trying to change the world for the better? No, just destroy it my friends, just destroy it.
