Review of Ghost Rider (2007) by Zane G — 30 Jul 2013

Ghost Rider is Marvel's lamest adaptation and honestly this movie could have been a lot better.

When the motorcyclist Johnny Blaze finds that his father Barton Blaze has a terminal cancer, he accepts a pact with the Mephistopheles, giving his soul for the health of his beloved father. But the devil deceives him, and Barton dies in a motorcycle accident during an exhibition. Johnny leaves the carnival, his town, his friends and his girlfriend Roxanne. Years later Johnny Blaze becomes a famous motorcyclist, who risks his life in his shows, and he meets Roxanne again, now a TV reporter. However, Mephistopheles proposes Johnny to release his contract if he become the "Ghost Rider" and defeat his evil son Blackheart, who wants to possess one thousand evil souls and transform hell on earth.

Well who would a thought that Marvel would eventually screw up? Am I the only one who thought that Ghost Rider is in fact Marvel's second worst movie (right under Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance). Well I pray that I'm not because this movie really tells me that any big movie studio can make some pile of junk. I didn't realize that Ghost Rider is based off of Marvel until right after I saw this movie. To me that really shocked me because this movie even looks likes it was made by the devil if he were on acid. My first reaction to the trailer was "I don't know about that." I see the movie and I feel so ashamed because I sat through a movie that should NOT have been made. I don't care how much money it made. It could make a billion dollars in the box office and I still could care less. Why? Because the movie sucks. Nothing comes together and it just seems random. Which is odd because it is a Marvel movie you should get really excited for the movie, but again this movie just doesn't add up. My biggest problem with this movie was a lot of things. Mainly the acting. Now I didn't Nicolas Cage at the time before this movie came out at that time we was making decent movies like the first National Treasure. But as I've gotten older he has been making very cheap and sloppy movies (and there are a lot of them). In 2007, Nicolas Cage was big because of National Treasure and other big movies he has done in his past that happened to be goof like Face Off. Now that years have gone by and Nicolas Cage has been doing pretty bad lately, I thought to my self "Why not review one of his bad movies?" Ghost Rider just happens to be on that list. Not only is the acting terrible, the overall concept of the movie is very silly. Not only that it seems out dated and very cheesy. It's as if the script was literally written by a kid who smoked a bunch of weed. (Kids don't smoke weed, its bad and illegal). Another thing the movie suffered was the overall execution. Everything that happened was so slow that you're suddenly not interested in what's going on. The action for the most part was very dated but I could see why someone could enjoy it. I will admit the one and only cool thing about this movie was when you first see Nicolas Cage transform into the Ghost Rider, and I thought "OK I'll let that slide." Other then that one cool feature the movie offers nothing else. I can see people, who have read the comics be very disappointed if they ever see this. To that I say "Just burn the movie." The way you see the characters interact with each other is really pathetic because the dialogue is so bad that it makes the characters look like fools. This movie features nothing but bad acting, terrible execution, a silly premise and fail of a comic book adaptation.

Like I said I rally used to like Nicolas Cage, but if you look at most of the movie he has made recently, its embarrassing on how bad they are. So with Ghost Rider, he is really bad. Either he was a bad choice or he just didn't really pull it off. He tries to act determined and even menacing at certain points, but it just doesn't make any sense as the movie goes on. Eva Mendes is one hot jalapeno, but not in this. The chemistry between her and Nicholas Cage for me was horrendous. It didn't make the movie whole. Sam Elliot is usually OK in certain movie but you couldn't understand a single word the man had to say through out the entire movie. Wes Bentley was a major flaw of the movie because his acting was awful. Just every actor in this movie was just god awful. The tone that Director Mark Steven Johnson set out for the movie was ridiculous because the tone was over all the place. I didn't know if was supposed to be funny or dark and that really bugged me.

Bottom line I hated this movie with a lot of heart. You couldn't give me any good excuse why in God's name someone would ever want to make a movie like Ghost Rider.