Bland, stupid and thoroughly rubbish

Rating: 4/10 (11 March 2007)

I personally have no problem with vacuous throwaway entertainment, particularly movies that exist for no other reason than to allow your brain to disengage itself for at least 90 minutes of rip-roaring stupidity. Whether it is the joy of seeing Ace Ventura talk out of his ass or Sylvester Claude-Van Schwatzenegger shoot the hell out of anything that moves, as long as the movie delivers a maintainable level of perfunctory nothingness, my tolerance of its glaring lack of merit can be incredibly high. Comic-book adaptations are an interesting case however. Films like Sam Raimi's Spider-Man, or Brian Singer's X-Men series do genuinely have souls, not least emotional depth and resonance. I have not read the comic books of Ghost Rider, so I cannot tell you whether there was any sense of depth intended behind the surface of Marvel's daredevil fantasy. But since there isn't any in the film, one could only hope for a salvation of blistering action.
Our story begins with a young pre-ghost riding Johnnie Blanze, a hot-shot daredevil who performs death-defying stunts with his famous father. One day, stumbling across a screwed-up letter in a waste bin, he finds out that his dad is suffering from cancer, and can feel death knocking at his door. Blaze is then confronted by Peter Fonda (played by the devil), who offers to cure his father's cancer in return for young Blaze's soul. Blaze agrees, but it is not enough to save his father from death. Now under the commandment of Mephistopheles, Blaze continues his career as a world famous daredevil, but at night becomes the "Ghost Rider".
Nicholas Cage appears to know how silly this project is, and his over-reaching extremities do occasionally make the odd cameo appearance every time something physical happens to him. But even he seems relatively bored with himself throughout most of the film. We get the wide eyes, the maniacal smile, the floating arms, but what we don't get is a truly engaging hero. There is absolutely nothing remotely interesting about his relationship with Eva Mendes, and despite the death of his father, he doesn't appear to be terribly bummed out about it. Half way through the film, Sam Elliot turns up as a manly grave-digger who chops wood and says things like "A man who sells his soul for love has the power to change the world." in an incredibly gravely voice. Considering just how bland Peter Fonda makes the devil seem, it is only Elliot who livens up any scene he's in. But it is not enough to save this film.
The action and CGI is disappointing, particularly when Blaze actually turns into Ghost Rider. Making a fiery demon say things like "You're going down!" or "Hey dirtbag! You're starting to p*ss me off!" doesn't exactly send shivers down my spine, nor does it have any of the Gothic resonance of the Batman movies. Instead what we have is an incredibly stupid, utterly bland film that is so aware of its target audience that no sane person over the age of 14 could actually take it seriously. Hell the actors don't, so why should you?