Another mediocre Marvel movie...

Rating: 5/10 (17 February 2007)

Everything about this movie was mediocre - by which I don't mean it was bad, but it certainly wasn't good.
Let's say, it didn't fulfill my hopes, but it didn't disappoint my expectations.
At times slipping into sophomoric melodrama, at other times tripping over metaphysical speeches that neither actors nor director seemed properly prepared for - surprising because the director is also the screenwriter.
The "creature effects" for Ghost Rider go over the top - a CG visage combined with a heavily processed voice mean that there is nothing accessibly human about the character. A more 'natural' voice would have upped the pathos and the audience involvement.
The thematic material is pretty light - the best theme I could come up with is that Blaze realizes that in order to live his life he must come to terms with the "monstrous" aspect of himself and embrace it. But more could have been done to connect this self-image of "monster" with the character's rhetoric about second-chances.
In other words, he saw himself as a monster even before he ever transformed into a flaming skeleton. Is this what we are supposed to gather from the film? It's only there piece-meal, if at all.
And I have some issues with casting. Eva Mendes is a true beauty, but she's ten years younger than Nicolas Cage - and their characters are meant to have been teenage sweethearts at 17. How does that work? And while in the late 90's I would have said Wes Bentley was an up-and-coming great, his performance in this movie leaves a lot to be desired.
In the pantheon of recent Marvel movies, Ghost Rider for me ranks somewhere above Daredevil and Punisher, and somewhere below Hulk and Elektra. In a word, mediocre.