Review of Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011) by Maineutral R — 14 Sep 2014

I'll say right away that I think both Ghost Rider and the sequel are equally bad for me. Both have the same faults, or even if they have different ones, the overall level of awfulness generated by them are in the same level. With that said, this stand-alone sequel has one or two cool things, but it's not worth it. The story didn't get any better or bigger, the characters are one-dimensional trash and the movie is not really all that fun, it's mostly a bore...you know, just like the first one.

Nicolas Cage does his classic rampage acting that was absent from the previous one, but appears only slightly (if you want to see him going all-out jam, better watch Face/Off) and when he is Ghost Rider, he's mostly acting all quiet and rather quick, so much that you can't catch a thing with your human eyes. It's basically drugs. And we shouldn't be surprised by that, as the director of this movie is the Neveldine & Taylor duo, who is known for the Crank movies starring Jason Statham. Those movies have the character needing some kind of element to be in full energy mode. That creates a lot of drug-inducing-like sequences, which the duo know how to do very well. They forgot to put the same effort and joy here in Spirit of Vengeance.

The more I think about it, this movie would have been a lot better if they used the style of the Crank movies. Just imagine: a Crank movie but with Nic Cage as Ghost Rider as the main character...that sounded like the craziest yet fittest idea ever. But all we got was trash, just poorly managed and directed trash.

The story is very thin, practically the whole plot can be written down in one poster tagline. The size is so little that makes the movie really nothing important. In fact, I tell you this: every time you go into a movie store and you see an empty shelve, IT'S NOT AN EMPTY SHELVE. Why? Because Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is there. Still don't see it? Well, it is there, but its importance and presence is so little that the eye can't see it, because our brain doesn't care about it and thus, it practically almost doesn't exist. So, remember, everytime there's an empty movie shelve, it's only because there's a Ghost Rider sequel DVD or Blu Ray right there.

Overall, this movie is just as bad as the first one. For everything it improved from the first, it works it out with another mistake of its own. These movies are unimpressive and ridiculous. Simply watch The Avengers or the first Iron Man, and there's your Marvel Comics movie.