Mugging Victim Unsurprised by Attacker's Flaming Skull.

Rating: 5/10 (29 January 2009)

Johnny Blaze began a career as a stunt motorcyclist while still in his teens, taking after his father, Barton Blaze, who has become a legendary stunt cyclist. In one of those bizarre quirks of irony that life tends to display, his father achieves fame by cheating death, only to be diagnosed with terminal cancer and given a short time to live. Johnny makes a deal with Mephistopheles, selling his soul to the devil in exchange for the return of his father's health. Sadly, the devil tends to be a bit of a sneaky bastard, so Barton's health returns wonderfully, and hours later he's killed in a motorcycle stunt. Ouch.
So now Johnny has no soul, but he doesn't quit cycling. In fact, being an instrument of Satan has a wonderful effect on his career, since Johnny is literally unable to be killed. He performs the most spectacular stunts imaginable and with a level of calm that suggests insanity. He's almost bored as he's leaping over things that other stuntmen wouldn't even imagine trying. Unfortunately, because of his pact with the devil, he also has to transform into the Ghost Rider, the devil's bounty hunter.
Sounds like it could be an interesting life, although I can't imagine how many new shirts he has to buy after they get all singed by his flaming head. Besides, he gets to ride through the night on this cool flaming chrome chopper finding evil souls and bringing them back to hell. I wouldn't mind that so much. Hear that, Mephistopheles?
There is one scene where a mugging victim is being attacked, and the Ghost Rider approaches, stops the mugging and dispatches some flaming justice. It's a satisfying scene, but then later there is a television news crew interviewing the victim, who doesn't appear to be firing on all cylinders. When asked for a description of the man who stopped the attack, she says, "he was all thin and bony and had a rad chopper with flames and stuff."
Anything else?
"Oh, and his face was a skull and it was on fire. It was an edge look but he totally pulled it off."
There you have sort of the tone of the whole movie. It's about a guy who sells his soul to Satan and becomes a tool of the devil by night, but it's certainly not afraid to laugh at itself, which is important in a movie like this. Besides, when the girl was given that interesting description, the look on the cameraman's face was classic.
There is also a totally ineffective love story between Johnny and Roxanne (played by Eva Mendez, who seems far too beautiful and sophisticated to fall in love with a stuntman like Johnny). Johnny flees his life after his father's death, leaving Roxanne for years without a word from him, but when a strange twist of fate brings them back together he is faced with the challenge of winning back his true love while also doing something about this pesky devil's slave thing.
You see, he does that foolish thing that people in half-witted movies like this tend to do - he tries to tell her the truth. He explains earnestly that he sold his soul and now has to work for the devil at night, and he's somehow surprised when she doesn't believe him. I love how he lets her get angry and storm away from him without ever thinking to just show her. I'll tell you this right now, if I'm ever in a position where I have to convince someone that I can fly or travel through time or turn my head into a flaming skull or anything else like that, you better believe I'm not going to do much talking beyond "Okay, watch this..."
Enter Blackheart, the devil's son, who is embarking on an ambitious plan to possess a thousand souls and thus release hell on earth. I would have thought it would take more souls than that, but no matter. Johnny is offered the opportunity to anull his contract with the devil if he can defeat Blackheart and send his soul back to hell.
All this taking and sending of souls gets so tiresome for me, and it may be one of the movie's biggest weaknesses. Buying and selling a soul tends to be something that most people have little experience with, so they offer this explanation:
"The host can gain control of the possessing spirit through concentration on and manipulation of the fire element that exists within man."
Hence the flaming head, I suppose. I'm reminded of that classic scene in O Brother, Where Art Thou? where they pick up that kid Tommy on the side of the road with the guitar. He explains casually that he sold his soul to the devil to learn to play the guitar real good, and Delmar asks incredulously, "For that you sold your everlasting soul?" Surprised, Tommy replies, "Well, I wasn't usin' it..."
I have a feeling that a substantial portion of Ghost Rider's target audience feels somewhat similar about their souls, which may be part of the reason that the movie has gotten such terrible reviews. Yeah, it's goofy, but it's not that bad. Most of the confrontations between Johnny and Blackheart and his gang are fantastically stupid ("My name is Legion, for we are maaaaaaaaanyyy!!!!"), but the movie is fun in its own way. Columbia Pictures, at least, certainly wasn't too disappointed with it, because they have now officially green-lit a sequel.
For some reason this makes me think of the relevance of one of the more interesting lines in the movie:
"Raise no more devils than you can lay down."