Ghost Rider

Image credit: Wikipedia

It’s funny to think that there are so many great stories and characters and narrative ideas out there in the world and many of them get picked up and turned into bad or mediocre movies. Indeed, it’s a funny industry that allows for terrible pieces to be created, distributed, and then left to age and (sometimes) outlive us all. For every groundbreaking masterpiece or commercial blockbuster that breaks the Box Office, there are dozens, hundreds even of mehs and megaflops. It’s a delightful world of content that we live in.

This train of through is partly influenced by a very interesting book that I am currently reading about a century of Hollywood flops and partly inspired by a dumb foray into a lesser celebrated Marvel movie that I saw for the first time recently: Ghost Rider.

When he discovers that his father has cancer, motorcycle stuntman Johnny Blaze (Nicholas Cage) sells his soul to Mephistopheles to save him. But a deal with the Devil never goes the way as planned and now, years later Johnny is forced to serve as Mephistopheles’ ‘Ghost Rider’ – an agent of vengeance. His task: eradicate a group of rebellious demons that seek an ancient and powerful scroll that would bring about the end of the world.

Falling into the category of Marvel antiheroes, Ghost Rider seems to be a movie that was made because a) Marvel characters had never really left our cinematic consciousness and it was about to have a real resurgence, and b) the idea is metal as Hell. Director Mark Steven Johnson definitely went in for a camp, metal, romp with a simple story that allowed for computer wizards to have fun with making demons, devils, and leather-clad, flame-wreathed skeletons. It’s a stupid and fun lone-gunman type metal western that rides on its silliness, which is made even more enjoyably ridiculous by the special effects. I mean, we’ve got a leather-clad, chain-wielding, skeleton who is on fire riding a motorcycle directly up the side of a skyscraper!

Having said this, the now-dated and janky special effects are completely what carries this movie. The story is simple and ‘eh’, but the characters are as boring as unseasoned rice water with both Nicholas Cage and Eva Mendes delivering performances that felt like they had no idea who their characters were. Johnny Blaze and his love interest are like that film that covers soup when it’s left to cool: a flimsy coating that you have to mash with your spoon to get at the good stuff.

Image credit: Fangoria

Ghost Rider is not a good movie, but it is a dumb fun movie and sometimes that’s the vibe you want on a Friday night.

Director: Mark Steven Johnson, 2007

Cast: Nicholas Cage, Eva Mendes, Matt Long, Sam Elliott, Raquel Alessi, Brett Cullen, Donal Logue, Wes Bentley & Peter Fonda