Ever since I saw the Ghost Rider preview for the first time late last year, I was counting down the days until its release.  It was one of the best trailers I had seen in a while, and it just looked really cool and fun.  Well, let me assure you that I wish I would have just stuck with the preview because this had to be one of the worst films I have seen in my life.

Ghost Rider was so bad, that I was actually trying to convince myself it was a good movie and I was just being a prick.  It had all the makings of a great movie, but man did Mark Steven Johnson fail big time.  He just does not know how to direct actors.  He needs to stick to cinematgraphy because his directorial skills are atrocious.  His first film, Daredevil was poorly acted, but Ghost Rider was the bottom of the barrel.

The story was classic superhero.  Kid loses a loved one and swears revenge.  Daredevil on wheels if you would.  This time its about a stunt cyclist named Johnny Blaze played by Nicholas Cage who makes a deal with the Devil to cure his ailing father's cancer in exchange for his soul.  The next day Johnny's dad is healthy as a horse but dies in a stunt that very same day.  Throw in the madatory love interest, Roxanne, played by a very stunning Eva Medes and an equally beautiful Raquel Alessi, and we get the "superhero incentive" right away.  Those two women were the ONLY reason I stayed the entire running time by the way.  Their beauty has no words to describe it fairly with.

Flash foward to an adult Johnny Blaze who is doing incredible stunts and not dying when failing due to his contract.  Roxanne and Johnny meet up again of course, only she is a tv reporter (how convenient) doing his stunt.  One of the devil's sons comes to Earth to search for some scroll that has all the souls the devil has captured and would transform its beholder into "Legion", who is a badass mythical creature by the way, but in no way a good one in this movie.

The next hour was just a blur of stupidity.  I mean one minute Johnny Blaze is jumping over helicopters in a stadium, the next he is on fire and harvesting the souls out of members of hell's army.  Wtf?  How does he all of a sudden know how to do this stuff?  Blackheart, who is the devil's son, has 3 other minions accompany him that could have been right out of Elektra, another one of Mark Steven Johnson's "quality" films.  Some idiotic fght scenes ensue, and Johnny saves Roxanne who all of a sudden is in love with him, even after showing her that he transforms into a flamming skeleton at night.

Okay, first the good.  The special effects in this film were top notch.  I mean these action sequences were awesome.  From Ghost Rider latching onto a skyscraper with a chain and riding down to Johnny driving his bike on water, it was cool.  Eva Mendes was gorgeous.  Her lines were funny at times and she just made the character likable.  

The bad.  Well everything.  The script was ridiculous.  It didn't know what it wanted to be.  At times it was a fantasy film, at others it was a mindless and laughable drama.  Why does Mark Steven Johnson suck at writing dialogue?  You can actually taste the cheese in the air after the lines are spoken.  "The Devil may have my soul, but he ain't got my spirit".  Who the hell says that nowadays?  Give me a break.  

Nicholas Cage and Eva Mendes had NO chemistry whatsoever in the film.  They just didn't make a feasible couple.  Eva Mendes was much to radiant and jovial for Nicholas Cage's introverted bad boy personality.  It just didn't sit well with me and every time they kissed it made me cringe.

In the end, this movie was terrible.  It was one big mess that seemed like it didn't know what it wanted to be.  I really would have liked to have seen this film be a little bit more darker and possibly more violent.  Why did every fight scene last about 5 seconds?  Ghost Rider would just touch the bad guys and they would burn.  Come on!  Let's see some punches, perhaps some throws, maybe some kicks.  Anything.  Not just a "POOF you are burned"!

If there is one way to describe this film, there was a line said by Eva Mendes during a scene where she is waiting for Nicholas Cage to come to a dinner date...but he's out saving the world or something...anyway she's drinking way too much wine and she asks the waiter "You think I'm pretty right?".  That is exactly what this film was.  It was a beautiful film techincally and women wise, but it just had nothing to it.  And when the waiter gave a "so-so" facial expression I almost laughed because that is exactly how I felt about this film.  

Ridiculous.  And a clearly wasted opportunity.

* out of **** stars
              

I saw this yesterday and I have to agree about the dialogue. It was probably the worst dialogue I've heard in any movie. I was laughing at almost every other line.

The acting wasn't that great either, even with Nicholas Cage. And with the really close ups on the peoples' eyes whenever they're having a stand off was so cheesy, along with everything else. I didn't like the flashbacks either because there were so many at once and we've already seen those scenes. It just got annoying.

I have to admit, though, the special effects were pretty great. I liked the same scene you did, Guy, where he jumps off the building and uses the chain to latch onto it.

This movie was, no doubt, the worst movie I've seen so far this year. It was almost as bad as Black Christmas...

Sean

After everything that's been said here, all I have to say is that the studio should have listened to David Goyer and gone with his darker, more violent take on Ghost Rider. They would have had a cult blockbuster on their hands but instead all they have now is another piece of childish, cliched, mediocre trash. I saw this coming.

Yea I did too see this piece of shit and was angry I paid to sit through it.

Things happen too Fn easy, just for convience of the plot.

Scene that made no sense, but was placed there for a setup.
"Okay I been guardin the scroll of 1000 souls, so hell on earth wont come, but ill give it to you for trade for the woman without thinking twice about it" "Hell I'll even go there with you just so i can die in the wind..."

My God the dialogue , although had some good parts, had sooooo many one lines/cheesy shit.

I must say I think I enjoyed dare devil more then this.

The bad guys just sit there and wait to be killed at Ghost Rider so they cancut the cost on CGI flames....lame

My brother said this was a bad movie as well. Suprise, suprise. From what I hear this suffers the "Spawn" effect. A great concept trapped in a childish movie that needs a darker venue to truly shine.

Spawn was dark and gritty and that was its downfall. I love Spawn all around, great character and the series did it enough justice that the film was just an average "So what?" and that was it.

These superhero films made today are just a money grab, why complain about it when you knew it all along?

I will still go and see this as much like The Phantom with Billy Zane I'm interested in seeing and being entertained even for a short while.

These films gross more than art films which is why they continue to make them.

My two cents:

Okay, to start out, here's the plot: there's a scroll that trapped some 2,000 souls or so... for some reason.  And Satan's son, Blackheart, wants this scroll... for some reason.  Unfortunately, Satan's bounty hunter, Ghost Rider, is sent to stop Blackheart before he can do... stuff.  Unfortunately unfortunately, B.H. has got three (really fucking lame) henchmen that stand in G.R.'s way.

Before all of this happens, however, we get forty-five excrutiating minutes of boredom as writer/director Mark Steven Johnson pretends he's making 'Batman Begins.'  See, young Ghost Rider (or Johnny Blaze) made a pact with the devil to save his father from dying of cancer.  Unfortunately, while Satan does keep his end of the bargain and does indeed cure Johnny's father, it does not stop his dad from making one final daredevil motorcycle jump and breaking his neck.  Waah-Waah.

So Johnny's pissed off and now has some kind of curse where he cannot die.  However, he is aware that someday Satan will come back and ask for some kind of favor.  And then that day finally comes when the devil's emo fag son decides to get this scroll.  So Johnny becomes Ghost Rider in the film's only truly great scene... and then alot of crazy half funny/half boring-as-fuck stuff happens.

Since there's not much, I'll go over what is good first: the aforementioned transformation scene is pretty fucking cool as Nick Cage does one of his patented freakout shouting/laughing thingers as his face and hands melt.  Speaking of Cage, he is probably the best thing about the entire flick as it is quite obvious he is putting his all into the performance.

Oh, and the CGI, while nothing mind-blowing, isn't terrible either.

Okay, there are the pros.  Here are the cons:

1.) Ghost Rider is a fucking lame superhero to begin with.  He can only really don his "costume" when evil is around and even then, he can't really do much except look cool and stare at people.  Also, Ghost Rider is apparently a really irritating and costly superhero as well.  Everytime he drives by anything on his hell-cycle, windows explode, cars melt and innocent lizards burst into flame.  Protecting innocence or not, I'd be pretty pissed if my car exploded because of some flaming jackass with a speed problem.

2.) The villians in this one are the lamest bastards to ever hit any movie screen.  While Blackheart can dish out a decent fight, his three cohorts (each representing the three elements of earth, wind and water) are just straight-up pussies.  Each one went down within literally thirty seconds of facing-off against Ghost Rider (these little skirmishes also resulted in the film's worst puns).  Of course, these assholes also supply one of the best unintentionally hillarious moments in the flick when Wind attacks with a blowing rush of air, Water attacks from within a puddle that G.R. steps in and Earth attacks by... driving a semi-truck right into our shitty hero?  That's not very Earthly at all.

3.) Pretty much the entire supporting cast sucks.  Eva Mendes just throws around her titties in every scene and doesn't really add all that much to the precedings at all.  The guy from 'Grounded for Life' is in the thing for a total of twenty minutes and when he's finally killed off, Blaze doesn't really seem to care all that much (apparently just screaming his best friend's name once was enough).  The dude from 'American Beauty' who plays Blackheart seems to be pretty out of it the entire flick, only really showing any kind of real emotion during the final battle.  Than there's Peter Fonda... who just kind of wanders around, shutting off lights wherever he goes.  Finally, there's the best of the bunch, Sam Elliot, who pretty much just plays his character from 'The Big Lebowski.'  He also supplies the entire plot of the flick in a ten minute sequence, which really makes one wander if he was even in the original script at all.

4.) Nobody in the entire movie seems to be that shocked when they see the man with the flaming skull barking out claims of guilt and innocence.  In fact, there's one scene where a cop with the biggest balls on the force walks right up to the Rider and smacks him in the face with a billy club.  Seriously.  If you saw that thing wandering around, you would shit your pants... or at least hide under a desk.  Instead, everyone just stares at him as if he's some common criminal, just another guy on a motorcycle who happens to make things explode.

5.) The climatic finale is just fucking stupid.  This whole scroll business is never completely explained, so the importance of the final battle just doesn't really come across as all that big of a deal.  Not too mention, this supplies a very bizarre scene wherein Blaze and Sam Elliot (whom is revealed to be a former Ghost Rider himself) light up and speed across the desert, G.R. on his motorcycle, Elliot on his... flaming horse.  It looks just as stupid as it sounds.

6.) The very final scene, which raises all kinds of questions.  As Blackheart is defeated (where exactly does a demon go when it dies anyway?), Satan approaches and tells Blaze that he is taking the curse back and he is allowed to go on with his life as normal.  However, Johnny has a different idea and claims he will keep the curse, using it to fight evil.  And then Fonda kind of hisses and dissapears in a cloud of smoke.  So... the devil essentially created a servent of death that has the free will to say, "No?"  

I think I've used the word "lame" at least three times in this lil' critque all ready.  That's because "lame" is probably the best way of describing the entire experience of sitting down and watching this.  The whole thing just lacks any weight, which really takes away any and all drama and conflict.  In fact, it's kind of like watching a semi-cool video game that you know you'll never be able to play.  I say semi-cool, but I also say video game... and this is a movie.

Look, I realize that this is 'Ghost Rider' and it's probably meant to just be a fun time.  But frankly, the whole thing is too damn boring to be any fun and too choppy to be suspenseful.  It just... sucks.

With 'Daredevil,' writer/director Johnson claimed that the theatrical, PG-13 version was a muddled down variant of what he really wanted.  And it sucked.  However, when the R-rated flick finally got around to being released on DVD, it was pretty decent and showed that Johnson wasn't just blowing smoke up our asses.  Be that as it may, though, with 'Ghost Rider,' I can't say for sure, but I'm pretty certain this is it.  And if there is more to add, I get the feeling it will just be more boring fucking exposition, which this movie could really do without.

Where would I place this with other superhero flicks?  It's nowhere near as bad as 'Batman & Robin,' but I would say it falls somewhere between 'X3' (sh***y) and 'Fantastic Four' (sh***ier).  Granted, all of this may not mean much considering I know absolutely dick about Ghost Rider as a superhero.  However, based on this, I highly doubt I'll be going out looking for a stack of G.R. comics anytime soon.

*1/2 out of ****

I've heard of this movie and watched the trailers for it too, it looked good, but i'm not going to waste $10 on a movie that evryone says could be better

This movie was a disgrace. A lackluster CGI, Eva Mendes titty fest that i trully hated with a passion. On the way to the cinema i was actually looking forward to it; trailer was good, good cast - well, decent cast, and Eva Mendes who, let's be honest, is a trully shit actress but is a babe, which is the only reason i stayed till the end of this cheese fest.

The plot is mediocre, the constant close up on everyone's eyes was obviously some link to Westerns but just added to the cheesyness of this "film". The whole flaming horse and Ghost Rider along side going across the dessert was pointless also because they must have spent thousand making the scene for Sam Elliot to go back across the dessert anyway. It sucked.

AHHH this film was soooo bad but i would advise everybody to see it for its sheer cheesy and funny - not intentionally - moments. This movie brings shit to a whole new level and the whole 3 minutes of the trailer i seen were probably the best bits of the entire movie.  This movie was terrible, probably the worst film - script wise and acting wise - i have ever seen and that is not an exaggeration.