Here is a challenge for you. Take a popular yet somewhat obscure comic book franchise and make a movie about it. Now, by obscure I mean not Superman, Batman or Spiderman – those have already been done. Now once you have this story in your possession, your goal will be to make a movie that is campy, unnecessarily cliché, and drives die-hard fans of the franchise nuts.
Once you have done that, then you will be on your way to being director Mark Steven Johnson, who has completed said task not once, not twice, but three times. In 2003 he directed Daredevil, which was a critical knockout, and not in a good way. Two years later he was the writer and executive producer for Elektra, which got hit by a huge critical bus. So now, after all of that, Mr. Johnson has come back with Ghost Rider – and let's just say that what he lacks in decision-making, he does make up with some visual flair.
The film stars Ghost Rider fanatic Nicolas Cage as Johnny Blaze, who as a young boy sells his soul to the devil (played by Peter Fonda – yes, that Peter Fonda) in order to cure his dad of cancer. Little does he know that the devil is a trickster who would kill his old man off anyway. Didn’t that kid read the New Testament? That devil is a sneaky bastard.
Anyway, the now soulless Johnny is cursed to one day become the Ghost Rider, the devil’s personal bounty hunter. Years later, after a painful amount of plot mis-development, Johnny is called upon by the devil to hunt down his son Blackheart (Wes Bentley) who is going through one of those “rebel against my father and destroy humanity” phases. This is a downer for Johnny, seeing as he has just reunited with his childhood love, played by Eva Mendes. Now Johnny must embrace the curse of being the Ghost Rider, and under the tutelage of a cemetery caretaker (Sam Elliot) he must find a way to defeat Blackheart, banish him back to the underworld and save all of mankind – all with his head on fire.
When you look at it that way it at least sounds cool, does it not? The only trouble that we run into is the fact that the plot in this film is severely underdeveloped. The entire film moves along at a pace that feels rushed for the audience, leaving nothing but questions: Why is the devil’s son trying to rebel? How did Johnny go from being a two-bit carney stunt biker to being Evil Knievel? And the all important question — why should we care?
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Article comments
1 - El Bicho
"When you look at it that way it at least sounds cool, does it not?"
Sorry, no.
If the devil's son was going to rebel, wouldn't he be doing good things and try to save people's souls? Why does Nick do his Elvis voice?
2 - Lumpy
wow. The cluelessness of a critic born after the ghost rider era is a wonder to behold.
3 - Neil Miller
Lumpy -- I know, it is sad isn't it? Wait, that's me you are talking about...
Alright, I am a bit clueless, which makes the situation more sad in the sense that this film is my first real experience with Ghost Rider. Please tell me that it gets better as I go back in time?
4 - Neil Miller
Bicho -- Cage stays away from Elvis, but when he changes into Ghost Rider the voice sounds more like the creature from the Abyss. I would have preferred Elvis.
5 - Ian Woolstencroft
Interesting review.
A couple of factual errors â€"
1. Mark Steven Johnson didn’t write Elektra - Zak Penn, Stu Zicherman and Raven Metzner did.
2. Mark Steven Johnson’s Executive Producer credit on Elektra is there because the character appeared in Daredevil, he had no hands on connection with the film.
3. Most comic fans actually like Daredevil, though admittedly not the original theatrical version but rather Johnson’s Director’s Cut which completely re-edited the film.