Ill conceived and patronizing disservice to the comic

Rating: 4/10 (5 August 2007)

Any fan of the comic book source material, or anyone having briefly heard of the character could easily recognize the cinematic potential for the Ghost Rider myth. How could the tale of a stunt motorcyclist, tricked into selling his soul to save the life of his estranged father and unwillingly becoming the devil's bounty hunter ever translate as something less than a dark epic thriller? Well, fairly easily, it would seem, if all parties involved seem determined to ignore the biting intensity of the subject matter and bring the story to screen as a watered down, painfully predictable tale devoid of any redeeming factors or cinematic merit whatsoever, as is unquestionably the case here. Fans of the comic Ghost Rider, be prepared - this is not the Johnny Blaze you knew and loved, this is nothing more than an inexcusable Hollywood massacre.
Writer/director Mark Steven Johnson, who seemed to have such a firm grasp on all of the defining assets of his source material in Daredevil's dark tale of redemption seems to have thrown any sense he once possessed off the proverbial rooftop, as his abysmally weak screenplay is at best a confused, imbalanced muddle riddled with more clichés than would seem humanly possible. The plot holes and flaws in logic are large enough to drive Ghost Rider's chopper through, and the protagonist's demonic abilities are never explained, to the point where new abilities seem to be invented on the spot, simply for the purpose of furthering the plot. (how to defeat the wind demon? By using his flame tornado ability of course! What do you mean he's never shown evidence of such a power before, he's had it all along... really!) The fact that Johnson's script could have been considered passable is really a testament to Hollywood's recent trend of tossing anything into theaters, no matter how weak or inconsistent, to make a quick buck.
And while the film, being a comic book action movie, may not have required a Pulitzer prize winning script to be a success, even in the action sequences the film seems rushed, ill conceived, and frankly just plain lazy, generating no tension or excitement whatsoever. The CGI is absurdly bad, to say the least - Ghost Rider himself boasts worse animation than most 1990s video games, and Blaze's transformation into the rider, which in the comics was a haunting and painful spectacle to behold, in the film is excruciatingly poorly done and mildly humorous. It goes without saying that the characters' abilities make for some fairly brief and uneventful battle sequences - Blackheart pokes people with his finger, and they die, whereas Ghost Rider simply stares them in the face, and they collapse, (the anticlimax is astounding...) whereas Blackheart's elemental sidekicks have such terrifying powers as being able to blow hard and drag Ghost Rider into a puddle of water... oh dear. How this could have been interpreted as even potentially enthralling is more frightening than any of the characters could ever hope to become in such a hackneyed mess.
Despite star Nicolas Cage's fervent admiration for the character, he is all wrong for the role right from the start - his performance, at times strangely goofy and otherwise painfully melodramatic, never comes close to capturing the dark intensity appropriate for Johnny Blaze. The normally talented Eva Mendes fumbles through her lines without a trace of emotion, her purpose in the film sadly reduced to cheap eye candy. An absurdly miscast Peter Fonda makes for a laughable devil figure, complete with a ridiculous beehive hairdo and far too many knowing references to Easy Rider to ever be taken seriously or come across as even slightly intimidating. Character actor Wes Bently at least appears to be trying as malevolent demon Blackheart, but he is saddled with most of the worst lines in the film (which is saying a lot) and the freedom to seemingly either overact or underact whimsically, making for yet another disappointingly ineffective antagonistic figure. Only Sam Elliot escapes with a trace of dignity as the mysterious Caretaker, but his oh so stereotypical "wise, grizzled mentor" role has frustratingly little purpose in the film, making his presence seem almost unnecessary. It is nothing less than a colossal disappointment to see such a talented cast reduced to a level of such frustrating mediocrity.
It is really quite as mystery as to how Ghost Rider could have misfired so severely in almost every possible front. As the film wavers uncertainly between being patronizingly predictable and absurdly nonsensical, butchering the comic book source material in the process, it still has the gall to take itself too seriously to even embrace the potential of being enjoyable in the "so bad it's good" sense. There is little good whatsoever in Ghost Rider, and apart from genuinely die-hard enthusiasts prepared to see the original character warped inexcusably or those in search of a thoroughly mindnumbing and unenthralling action romp, it would seem prudent to avoid the film at all costs, or succumb to a disappointment of (dare I say it?) hellish proportions.
-3/10