Anybody who has listened to STAR, CineMax and me complain about what we've seen in early Ghost Rider 2: Spirit of Vengeance trailers might know what to expect in this review. And unlike the Ghost Rider fanboys who were expecting a lot out of the Ghost Rider sequel, I'm not going to let you down: Never glancing backwards, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance blazes forward with a vengeance, crashes, and burns.
The story is that Johnny Blaze (Nicholas Cage) is a jellybean-popping, world-famous, ex-motorcycle stunt man who, after selling his soul to the devil, becomes an avenging epitome of hell on wheels, saving the innocent and punishing the wicked. Along the way, he ends up fighting evil to save the woman he loves but can never be with. It's a tame, family-friendly satanic romp with okay special effects and all-to-brief fight scenes. That was the FIRST Ghost Rider movie. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is almost an entire reversal of everything that the first movie established. Sure, Johnny Blaze is still a bus-hopping Evel Knievel who sold his soul to save his dying dad, but here's where the sequel drives off the beaten path and never looks back. Partly for the good, actually.
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is a re-envisioning of the critically panned original Ghost Rider movie. Gone is the lighter, comical and colorful take of the Ghost Rider lore akin to other comic films like Spider-Man, Catwoman, and Dare Devil, and now the re-envisioning takes a darker turn towards Dark Knight territory because film producers are so shallow that they all think that comic book movies have to be dark and gritty to be good. The new Johnny Blaze (the role reprised by Nicholas Cage) is a bitter lone wolf who, torn by the raging appetite of the Ghost Rider demon, has run away from America and to Eastern Europe. He's recruited by the wine-loving, bike-riding priest Moreau (Idris Elba) to save a young boy named Danny (Fergus Riordan), who is being pursued by the forces of evil and the Devil himself. To save Danny and his mother, Nadya (Violante Placido) they need to escort Danny to a sanctuary headed by Methodius, (Christopher Lambert of The Highlander, Mortal Kombat) where he can hide out until the appointed date in which Danny's use to the Devil supposedly expires. In exchange for the Ghost Rider rescuing and escorting Danny, Moreau promises to lift Johnny Blaze's curse of the Ghost Rider. Meanwhile the Devil has sent Danny's mom's jilted ex-lover, Ray Carrigan (Johnny Whitworth) after the boy. After an initial romp with the Ghost Rider, Ray Carrigan is turned into the super villain, Blackout, whose touche causes anything and everything to rot and decay, except in an honestly hilarious segment involving a Twinkie.
But the Ghost Rider is not the same creature from the first Ghost Rider movie. No, the Ghost Rider in Spirit of Vengeance is much less of an avenging angel and more of a shark: indiscriminate, violent, relentless, and hungry. This is made apparent in one of the films many illustrated/animated scenes which pop up from time to time to deliver exposition for people too deaf or stupid to simply be told what's going on. The audience is treated to a very brief scene with a comic book skull scanning the audience, explaining the change of the new Ghost Rider as a creature who actively searches for even the most miniscule of people's sins just to feed on their souls. To paraphrase the message: "You may not be a murderer, but if you ever performed an illegal download the Ghost Rider will know it."
Fuck you, too, MPAA.
So the Ghost Rider no longer has a "doing it for love" angle where he fights baddies with the noble intentions of saving his friends and the girl of his dreams. In fact, there's an underlying threat of Johnny Blaze turning into the Ghost Rider during his escort mission and slaying Danny and his mom, Nadya, for what meager sins they may have committed, such as pickpocketing or promiscuity (the mom, not the kid). Even though that underlying threat of an "enemy of my enemy is still an enemy" angle isn't as explored as I'd love to have seen it, I believe that Spirit of Vengeance benefits from the quickly disregarded intensity between the two companies compared to another tacked on love story. But in its place we're instead treated to Johnny Blaze playing the surrogate father figure to darkly demonic Danny, whose twice occurring joke is mentally picturing the Ghost Rider pissing fire like a flamethrower. That's right, the notorious pissing fire scene happens not once, but twice. But to give the directors and writers some slack, it's not an attack that the Ghost Rider uses on enemies, just an unneeded visualization of a child's potty-humor imagination. Yeah, dark and gritty indeed...
The original Ghost Rider movie has its cool moments, like when he was driving up the sides of buildings and... hrmmmm.... Moving on, Spirit of Vengeance has a few sweet moments of its own, such as the scene of the blazing excavator machine from the trailers. Over the top? Sure, but it does make for a decent popcorn flick much in the same way that the action was the real redeeming factor in movies like Terminator 3, and Mortal Kombat. However there's an almost unbearably long gap in the action in the middle of the movie, and I found myself continually taking off my 3D glasses to refocus my eyes on the only source of light in the theater: the glowing EXIT sign. Not a good sign. When the action is in full swing, and the Ghost Rider is razing baddies with his chains or fighting on the highway, I did enjoy it. However, during the long gaps between the action it's a trite rehash of other "save the kid from evil" movies like Christopher Walken's "The Prophecy" or Arnold Schwarzenegger's "End of Days", but without a sense of urgency, or any emotional connection to any of the characters.
Honestly, I preferred Nicholas Cage's acting in the first Ghost Rider, mostly because he had some emotional range. In the first movie, love it or not, there's numerous moments where he's going through more emotional turmoil than simply bouncing between angry and batshit loco like in Spirit of Vengeance. And speaking of loco, watching Nicholas Cage act 'crazy' as he fights to contain the Ghost Rider demon is just as painful as having your head set on fire. At one point in the movie Nicholas Cage is interrogating a man who may know the location of where Ray Carrigan/Blackout took Danny, and he wigs out on the guy while holding a knife to his throat. A lot of head-shaking, crazy Nicholas Cage laughter, and some post-production morphing effects later, I was genuinely horrified. I wasn't horrified in a "Heath Ledger as the deranged Joker chills me to the bone" sort of way, but more in the "Jesus Christ, Nick Cage made how much to do this?" kind of way. Anybody who has watched the first Ghost Rider movie remembers the jailhouse scene where Nicholas Cage is being systematically beaten by other inmates for... who the fuck really knows why he's getting beaten down... but Nicholas Cage has a fit of hysteria that is Razzy Award worthy. Now, multiply that by about 20 and you'll get an idea of the kind of over-acting and piss-poor direction involved in the scene. I imagine Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor telling Nicholas Cage to "just act crazy" or "act like the Joker" and calling the scene a wrap after the first take.
On the other hand, the mannerisms of the Ghost Rider are a lot more interesting and almost nightmarishly fun. While the Ghost Rider flashes and jumps forward in a skip-frame manner seen in most modern ghost movies, and cocks his head as jarringly as a chicken, it's still quirky and unnatural enough to give it a slightly disturbing effect, similar to the effect of the ghosts in "Gothika" where actresses walked backwards, and the film was played in reverse giving the ghosts an unnatural forward motion. In addition, the sound effects and the visual appearance of the Ghost Rider are miles ahead of the original movie. The flaming skull looks charred and more realistic thanks to new advances in CGI technology. The spotless leather jacket with the long spike studs is replaced with a jacket that looks like it barely survived a house fire. And the vehicles that the Ghost Rider commandeers are no longer exaggerated H.R. Giger technorganic machines, but instead they simply turn charred black as flame bellows from every metal orifice. The Ghost Rider has never looked cooler, but coupled with his staggered gasping laugh (which sounds like a hollow "a-a-a-a-a-a") its never sounded better, either.
And the most shocking part is that the skeletal Ghost Rider acts less like a walking corpse than Nicholas Cage as Johnny Blaze. Yeah, wrap your head around that.
I do have a few complaints about the other characters, but my main focuses are on Methodius and The Devil himself. Firstly, Christopher Lambert has never been an A-list actor and a lot of his movies are "meh" at best, but I've always liked the guy in Highlander, Mortal Kombat, Beowulf, or anything else where he gets to kick a little ass. It's rumored that Christopher Lambert spent three months sword training for his part as the body-art monk, Methodius. It's almost ironic that Duncan McLeod needed three months of sword training to do nothing more than hold a sword for half of his ten minutes of screen time. Nothing pissed me off more royally than not seeing Christopher Lambert get to reprise his more iconic movie moments.
Sympathy for the Devil: Peter Stormare (Constantine) and Viggo Mortensen (The Prophecy) are two of the best Hollywood portrayals of Satan.
Secondly, The Devil (Ciarán Hinds) is just not a memorable Satan. Sure, he's evil in a Dick Chaney sort of way, but just being evil isn't good enough for the king of Hell. I like charismatic Devils, ones that are still oozing evil, but still have an ounce of charm that would make you actually consider selling your soul to the guy. Some prime examples of exceptional Satans include the eerily intoxicating performance by Viggo Mortensen in the movie "The Prophecy", or the horrifically insane but mesmerizing performance by Peter Stormare in "Constantine". Both actors mentioned brought an aura of true evil to the screen, an evil that simply grabbed your full attention and, though their time was brief, became highlights of both films. Ciarán Hinds, however, seems to play it too safe as the evil corporate or capitalistic entity that never really gives the audience any reason to be scared shitless of him, be engrossed in his portrayal, or feel as though anything would be gained or lost if he got his hands on little Danny.
Finally, without giving away details or spoilers, the ending is nothing short of a complete copout and practically "out of the blue" (a pun for anyone who's seen Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance) where essentially the dark, hungering, primal and violent creature doesn't evolve into a greater entity during the course of the movie, but instead makes an extreme and abrupt leap towards redemption. The entire ending is akin to Jaws becoming Free Willy in the last 5 minutes of the movie. The entire "evolution" of Johnny Blaze and the Ghost Rider is nothing but an emotionally vacuous moment of Deus Ex Machina.
My overall opinion of Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is that Marvel Knights, the banner which the terrible Punisher: War Zone was released under, did exactly what they did with the Punisher sequel/remake: Turning gritty comic book characters that were unfairly given more lighthearted adaptations into grittier, violent movies, while entirely disregarding emotion and sacrificing plot. The result is a lot of over the top action, but -compared to their predecessors- an empty experience as a whole.
But I didn't hate Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, and I did like it a little more than the original 2007 movie, and I wouldn't dissuade anyone from watching it. It's a decent popcorn movie with some great special effects and some good action sequences, but I'd suggest that you catch a cheap matinee and forgo the 3D entirely to get the most bang for your buck.
