Today's Review: Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance

I haven't seen the first Ghost Rider, which is probably a good thing, because now I really don't want to. In this sequel Nicholas Cage returns as Nicholas Cage, I mean, Johnny Blaze. As the back story so kindly tells me, he made a deal with the devil to save his father's life, and is now periodically possessed by a flaming skeleton dude with a flaming motorcycle, who kills everything in sight. Kind of like the Hulk but with more fire and bikes, and less of those purple underoos. I don't know if it's any less homoerotic though.

Well, we don't see much of Johnny Blaze at first, we're treated to what I guess is called "the plot", in which an alcoholic priest attempts to save a boy from a group of bounty hunters, something which Anthony Head fails to do. Poor Anthony Head, he used to be Giles, and now he can't even survive the first ten minutes of a Nicholas Cage movie. What happened? Anyway, the same devil dude that made the deal with Johnny wants this boy for some mysterious purpose, which is explained in a painfully drawn out way through the rest of the movie to give the impression that the plot is more complicated than it actually is. The alcoholic priest decides the best thing to do to save the boy is to recruit a guy who turns into a flaming skeleton and kills everyone, so he strikes a deal with Johnny to rid him of the curse if the boy is saved.

So begins a rollercoaster thrill ride as Nicholas Cage drives somewhere, sees bad guys, turns into Ghost Rider, kills them all, and repeats. He's never in any particular danger for long, and he also pisses fire in the boy's imagination at one point, just because. This movie is, quite simply, a mess of fire and engine revs starring a ridiculously overpowered hero with no depth whatsoever. Nicholas Cage often attempts to employ some biker language in his cooling off periods, but just ends up sounding like an embarrassing father.

There are random small scenes thrown in during which nothing much happens, which disrupts the small amount of flow and pacing that the movie manages to create.

Ha, see what I did there? I mirrored what I was talking about in my own writing. I can do English really well. So yes, suffice it to say that I did not particularly enjoy this movie. The effects were okay I guess, but I watched it in 3D too, and it looked as flat as a pancake in a shitty 3D movie. The performances are awful, the pacing is all off, the story is pretty much non existent and dull, I don't feel anything towards these characters, it's just not good. The final kick in the teeth is how it ends. I don't care about spoiling it for you, I'm gonna tell you how it ends.

"Did we win?"
"Yes"
"I'm the Ghost Rider"

Shakespeare right there.

My rating: 1/5