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So I just watched Ghost Rider....
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By:
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LouisCedar
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Mood:
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in love
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Date:
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09/11/2008 16:39:04
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Music:
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Foo Fighters
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And it sucks. Big time. I knew going in that it was going to be an bad movie; I'd have to have been living under an internetless rock not to have known that. But I thought that maybe it would be the "good" type of bad, and besides, I was bored, sick, and I had a free rental from blockbuster. Ghost Rider could have been a kick-ass,
scary, supernatural-superhero movie, but instead it was…well…crappy.
The dialog was awful, the plot was boring and poorly thought out, and
the acting by Nic Cage and Eva Mendez was awful. Throughout most of the
movie I found myself wishing that they’d just kept Matt Long as Johnny
Blaze (the actor who played the younger version of Nic Cage’s
character), as he was one of the few actors in this film who managed to
turn in a competent performance. The beginning of this movie wasn’t
actually that bad (at least compared to the rest of the movie). The
dialog was corny and the premise was hokey, but the actors kinda-sorta
made it work (emphasis on the “kinda-sorta”). Matt Long played Johnny
Balze believably and Peter Fonda was great as Mephistopheles, which is
impressive given the (crappy) material that they’re given to work with.
The scene between the two of them, where Johnny first makes the deal to
become hell’s bounty hunter, so long as Mephistopheles agree’s to save
Johnny’s father’s life, was strangely written (Johnny, more or less,
accidentally signed the Contract to sell his soul) and was corny as all
hell, but it got it’s point across. Then we flash forward to the
future, where Nic Cage, as modern-day Johnny, makes his first
appearance. It’s here where the biggest problems of this film come to
the surface.
One scene stands out in my head as a perfect demonstration of one of
this flicks biggest misfires: Nic Cage’s portrayal of Johnny Blaze. The
scene starts out with Johnny sitting in his tour-bus (he’s become a
famous stunt-motorcyclist), with a depressed and reflective look on his
face. A member of his pit crew (or whatever they’re suppose to be) is
lecturing him about his reckless behavior during his stunts. He makes a
reference to Johnny’s latest stunt, where he landed on his head and
nearly broke his neck while attempting to ramp
over six helicopters with his motorcycle. The crewman makes a reference
to Johnny’s super-natural luck, “Luck don’t cover it JB, you got an
angel looking after you.” As the crewman walks away Johnny Looks out
the window and says “Yeah maybe…maybe it was somethin’ else..” Just
then lightning flashes outside of the tour bus, and in Johnny’s
reflection in the window we, for a split second, see a skull
in place of Johnny’s face. Then, Johnny turns back around to his crew
mates….and starts eating Jellybeans. And making Jokes. And acting
all-around goofy and light-hearted. What happened to the hot-headed,
angst-ridden, conflicted Johnny Blaze that Matt Long played? Nic Cage
should have turned in a dark, haunting performance, but instead played
him as a barely conflicted, goofy country bumpkin who quickly begins to
enjoy his “curse” of turning into hell’s bounty hunter when the sun
goes down. It was impossible for me believe that Matt Long and Nic Cage
were playing the same character. Add Eva Mendez’s awful “Roxanne”
character into the mix, and this movie is almost unbearable right from
the get-go. Now, this isn’t really the actors faults…the script is
terrible. Johnny was written to be a goofy hic and Roxanne was written
to be the stereotypical love-interest/old flame.
Another big problem with this film is that once the action gets going,
there really isn't any action at all. Nic Cage transforms into Ghost
Rider, rides around, chases some punks, scares the crap out of them,
then rides away. Then later, Nic Cage transforms into Ghost Rider,
rides around, chases away some demons, and then rides away....Seeing a
pattern here? Then, in the films big final fight sequence, Ghost Rider
destroys Mephistopheles's son Blackheart by....looking into his eyes.
Sure, Ghost Rider has some sort of "super vision" that sends evil souls
to hell when he looks into there eyes...but that's it. He barely fights
Blackheart, and then just kinda walks up to him, looks into his eyes,
and that's that...Ghost Rider wins, movie ends, credits
roll, and audiences across the nation get in line to get their money
back. And the worst part about these lame fight sequences? Ghost rider
only uses his awesome spikey chain once. But it's not to lay waste to a
demon, he uses it as a lasso, to create a tornado-like whirl-wind to
vanquish some sort of wind demon (or something).
I’d have to say that the worst part about Ghost Rider isn’t the awful
dialog, or the poorly written characters, the poorly executed premise,
or even the “a little bit too realistic” look that the filmmakers gave
to Ghost Rider, it was how incredibly awesome this movie COULD have
been. “A young stuntman sells his soul to the devil, agreeing to become
hell’s bounty-hunter in exchange
for the Devil saving the life of his cancer-ridden father.” Such an
amazingly scary, awesome, supernatural thriller could have come out of
this premise, but instead a goofy, hokey, and somewhat boring comic book
movie was made. The only good part about the entire film aside from
Matt Long and Peter Fonda was Sam Elliot, who was kinda cool as the
care-taker, but even he had a tough time making his ridiculous dialog
work. And the scene where he gets to shine the most, as the “previous”
ghost rider, seems out of place and unnecessary.
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