Ghost Rider Review

Bottom-Line:  Ghost Rider is a lazy film that is regrettably uninterested in it characters, and equally as uninterested in its audiences ability to tell a turkey from a swan. 

Hasn't the Marvel Comic Books stable of hero's ran out yet?  Apparently not; queue Ghost Rider (2007), a movie that when the credits rolled left a lot to be desired, and begged the following questions: how did this hackneyed script get past the editors and what was Eva Mendes thinking?    

The Story-Line

Written and directed by Mark Steven Johnson (Elektra, Daredevil) Ghost Rider as I stated is based on the Marvel Comics comic book of the same name.  The movie deals with the creation of the creature, the Ghost Rider, herald of the Devil, who is human by day, and skull burning creature from Hell by night or in the shadows.  In the movie adaptation Nicolas Cage (Lord of War, National Treasure, Raising Arizona) portrays Johnny Blaze/Ghost Rider a motorcycle stunt driver who as a teen sold his soul to the Devil a.k.a. Mephistopheles (Peter Fonda) in order to save his father(Brett Cullen). 

My Viewpoint

It is hard to take this movie seriously, I mean really, who wrote the dialog for this muddled dance with the devil?  The question is of course rhetorical, Johnson takes writing credits, but very few of the Marvel classic comics have been turned into meaningful, intelligent, really enjoyable movies.  And Ghost Rider continues in that not-so-fine tradition; the film is a convoluted mess.  The movie wanders and meanders into and out of the corridors of the improvable and ridiculous.

Cage was his usual self, meaning he inhabits the role with much gusto and with a smidge of over acting thrown in for good measure.   And Eva Mendes was little more than eye candy; her time on-screen was limited as was her mostly inane dialog. 

Sam Elliott appears in Ghost Rider portraying a wizened old character named The Caretaker, who of course has all the answers to Johnny unasked questions; after all he is a Ghost Rider as well.  He, the Caretaker, also acts as the moderator for the story.  His presence no doubt is meant to give Ghost Rider the gravitas it might otherwise lack and Elliot with his grizzled learned tone infuses the movie with a neo-western theme, layered with equal amounts of ominous guitar twang and classic arena rock. 

But Elliot cannot make up for Ghost Rider's lack of plot layers and emotional depth.  The movie is a bunch of scenes stuck together without a coherent center or likeable characters.  Ghost Rider is a lazy film that is regrettably uninterested in it characters, and equally as uninterested in its audiences ability to tell a turkey from a swan.