Review of Ghost Rider (2007) by Pur__0_0__ — 08 Apr 2021

When I had seen pictures of Ghost Rider for the first time, I was really impressed. I really wanted to know what this badass dude is capable of doing, so I saw Marvel's TL;DR video on it. I really loved the idea. So I thought let's give the movie a try. And, well, here I am.

The movie begins with a narration. The black and white flashing effects could make any Indian TV serial look like a flipping virgin. Once that was done, the scene changed to the young Johnny Blaze as the stunt driver. He accidentally sells his soul to the Devil, and now the Devil cures his father of a disease which was never talked about before. And suddenly Daddy Blaze dies because Devil wanted to not let Johnny have any relations. And I COULD have believed that, except that Johnny still gets to be with all his friends and he VOLUNTARILY leaves his girlfriend.

One very weird habit about Johnny Blaze is the way he points his finger at people and says "You!". He does it as a child, he does it as an adult. I'm supposing this wasn't a thing in the comics, and even if it was it could have been done away with, since it wasn't something important and it looked stupid.

After he grows up to be Nicholas Cage, he has become a stunt rider who defies the laws of physics using badly edited scenes. When he finds Roxanne played by Eva Mendes aka discount Priyanka Chopra, he starts talking to her awkwardly about her personal life in front of the camera even though he could have done it before or after the interview. And Roxie leaves him because she isn't interested in him anymore. Like, then why did you even come to take his interview? It's established that she's the boss so she could have sent one of her employees to do it.

And then Johnny drives behind Roxie in a poorly done green screen and promises her that he will meet her at dinner. But then a new villain, Blackheart comes up with a Bollywood-style CGI entrance and a terribly executed jumpscare. Because of him Johnny turns into Ghost Rider and does everything except doing the very thing for which he had been made Ghost Rider.

And the next day when he meets Roxie she doesn't believe the person she's interviewing. Like, read the room, Roxie! The road is melted with motorcycle tyre marks. What makes you think she's lying? And then at night Johnny tells her that he becomes a monster every night. And Roxie says he shouldn't make excuses about this. Normally we'd have accepted this scene, but just one scene ago he was shown to make fireballs with his hands. So why didn't he just make one in front of her to prove it?

And then he fights an air dude who's that generic "Ha ha ha! You can't beat me! I am... no wait, wha... NOOOOO!" type guy. After that Ghost Rider fights and kills Blackheart, Devil comes back to take his powers. But Johnny refuses. It was supposed to look like a very touching moment signifying that Johnny hated his powers but now grew into liking them, but it didn't feel anything like that. Throughout the movie he only felt like he was okay with these powers and they didn't bother him much.

This movie has done everything badly - the score was terrible, the scene cuts looked sudden, the CGI was terrible for 2007 (Superman Returns came a year ago and nailed the CGI), the acting was Raspberry-worthy. The only reason I'm giving this 3 is because it's Ghost Rider. At least they tried. And also because it's so bad that it's hilarious.