Ghost Rider - Action Packed, Plot Dry
“Ghost Rider” is a comic book take of how a curse and a bad decision for the right reason can be used for good. Directed and written by Mark Steven Johnson. Ghost Rider has a lot of the fun qualities about action movies but falls flat when it comes to substantive or interesting plot and occasionally gets downright dumb.
Nicholas Cage is Johnny Flame, a motorcycle stunt driver. When he’s offered the opportunity to save his father from cancer at an unclear cost, he takes it for the opportunity to save his father. He finds out later that the cost of his father’s health is loosing everyone he loves and having to become the devil’s bounty hunter: The Ghost Rider.
The Ghost Rider has to collect some of the angels fallen after the battle between God and Lucifer. In order to do that he puts himself in some of the most idiotic situations. He could easily avoid some of the demons if he wanted, make a plan for attack and defeat them with his brain. I guess if you’re an idiot, that’s asking a lot. Instead he wanders right where he should know they would be, without taking proper preparations. It’s obvious that he never was a boy scout.
The first five minutes tell us what the final conflict is going to be. If you have any ability to pick up on foreshadowing, it’s imperative that you come to the movie only for the action scenes. I was annoyed that I knew the ending and I had to sit through the rest of the movie. If you are going to tell us the end, make the rest of the movie worth watching.
The special effects range from fun to watch to fun to throw popcorn at. The close ups of Ghost Rider himself are well done. The big exception is when Ghost Rider takes on and off his chain. I get that he has mystical powers but come on, the chain never gets unwieldy? It never crumples up a little?
There is a steamless love story that runs though the movie. The chemistry between Cage and Eva Mendes who plays Roxanne Simpson, Blaze’s long time love, is like water hitting a wok heated by a tea candle. Their love story doesn’t have the emulsifier needed to hold together the oily Cage and the ice cold Mendes.
I’d love to watch this movie while doing the dishes but I don’t think I’d pay full price for it.
2/5
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LaRae Meadows
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