Oof. A Gut Punch of Terrible

Rating: 4/10 (21 August 2019)

I'm gonna get this out of the way now. This is not a great Nic Cage ("Adaptation") performance of either crazy or quality varieties. It leans more towards crazy than quality but there are way better crazy performances from Cage out there. The main problem is that during most of the scenes where he is being a BAMF, he is also a cgi skeleton. That means no awesome Nic Cage facial expressions or visual acting choices.
During the scenes where is just regular old Nic Cage he does seem to give a pretty weird at moments performance. Unfortunately, it lacks the deep seated feeling that some of his other characters have. He may laugh like a little kid when watching a TV show then switch on a dime when someone turns it off but he doesn't feel totally unhinged. More like he just has strange moments. For the most part the film still wants you to identify with him and see his acts as fantastic to be sure, but also relatable and understandable which to me is something I'm not really looking for in a Nic Cage performance.
The film itself is one long mess. The stakes are said to be high but don't seem to be fully realized. A danger which is supposed to be akin to Hell being established on earth feels about as thought through as a Halloween Horror House that was set up in a few hours. It doesn't seem scary or real at all.
The story structure, scene structure, and general plot just sort of happen. It doesn't feel as if any of the characters really have agency. Everything seems false or to be happening because 'movie.'
A good example of this is the first time we see Nic Cage do a jump stunt. This sequence is a mess. First you have Cage's, sorry, Johnny Blaze's stunt coordinator telling him he thinks the stunt is too big. They have a fight about it. Then, right before the jump, Blaze's childhood sweetheart Roxanne (Eva Mendes, "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans") surprises him with an impromptu interview (she grew up to be a reporter). He basically refuses to answer any of her questions about how he feels before the jump, opting instead to ask her about her life, then inform her that the jump would be taking place over top a bunch of army helicopters, which his stunt coordinator also doesn't know anything about. He then makes the jump then squeals tires off into the arena and onto the highway to catch up with Roxanne on the highway as she heads home, and stop traffic to ask her out.
None of this makes sense.
His stunt coordinator should be pumping him up for the jump. The last thing you need before a daredevil stunt is your best friend and business partner telling you that you can't do it.
What's with the surprise interview? Actual reporters may surprise a "person-on-the-street" with an interview question but not the subject of a story. They would have set that up weeks ago and Blaze would never be surprised by it.
How can Blaze catch his coordinator off guard with Helicopters? It's an indoor arena. There is no way that his entire team would not know that there would be running helicopters in his stunt. They would have to be loaded in to the facility. The pilots would all have to be checked out. Insurance companies would chime in. It's plain ridiculous to believe that 5 minutes (literally) before the stunt he could change something so major.
After making the jump he peels out and takes to the highway, presumably by way of the arena. How? Through all the locked doors, stairways, and escalators? That bike isn't street legal. And I guarantee the first person to look at it, after he crashed it and survived to make the jump would be a mechanic. Blaze wouldn't have even got to it. For all he knows it is 15 minutes from exploding.
To top the whole thing off, the reporter left the event and Blaze had to catch up with her. Why would she leave? The event where he either dies or breaks the world record jump length is on the line. She misses the chance for a victory lap interview or postmortem coverage with the team and fans if he comes up short and is pureed by helicopter blades.
The whole film is like this. Stuff just happens. It doesn't make sense. They don't try to make it make sense.
If you think that maybe the movie gets better when he is the Ghost Rider then think again. He just transforms into a flaming headed skeleton dressed in leather, wielding a chain, and riding a blown up version of a hotwheels chopper. Then CGI happens. Flames happen. He says something tough and stares into someone's soul till they collapse.
This is a movie about demons and a demon hunter. Where's the blood, guts, or temptation? The bad guy just makes people's faces change color till they die. Wes Bentley ("The Four Feathers") has never been accused of being scary and he definitely doesn't bring it to this role. You'd think casting Peter Fonda ("Easy Rider") as Mephistopholes would lend some gravitas but again, no. Totally miscast. Should have gone with someone like Tom Waits ("The Dead Don't Die") who could have pulled off the vibe it seemed like they were going for.
The real shame is that there are the bones of a good movie in here. I can easily imagine the movie that actually deserves to have Sam Elliot ("The Big Lebowski") play the mentor and crazy Nic Cage as a vengeance crazy mad man but I think you'd have to break from the source material and director Mark Steven Johnson ("Daredevil") to do it.