Regardless of one's fondness for comic books, one can still sit through the better comic-to-movie adaptations and enjoy them for their overwrought tension, superhuman heroes, wonderfully eccentric villains, and plethora of action and violence rendered in cutting-edge special effects. Yet, despite how die-hard of a fan you are of its flaming skull of a protagonist or how great of a action film addict you are, toleration, let alone enjoyment, of Ghost Rider is an impossibility.
Ghost Rider tells the story of Johnny Blaze. Young Blaze (Matt Long) is a motorcycle stunt driver at a small Western carnival. Blaze (Matt Long) performs alongside his father, Barton (Brett Cullen), and looks up o him as his role model. Blaze learns that his father is dying of cancer. So, what's the most natural first thing one does after learning that his or her father is dying of Cancer? Sell your soul to the devil in exchange for your father's health, of course. This is exactly what young Johnny Blaze does when the devil, also known as Mephistopheles, or Peter Fonda, with glowing orange eyes, requests this exchange to be signed with Blaze's blood. While film reviews aren't usually the place to offer life advice, I am going deviate from this convention. If the devil offers a deal of your soul for something, anything, politely say thank you and walk away. Not surprisingly, Blaze's Faustian bargain goes awry and results in his father dying in a motorcycle accident the following day.
Following this tragedy, Blaze jumps on his bike and hits the road, leaving his quaint carnie lifestyle and his budding romance with Roxanne (Raquel Alessi) behind.
Fast-forward a decade or two, and we are shown a grown-up Blaze, played by the idiosyncratic actor Nicholas Cage. Blaze has become something of legend as a professional motorcycle stunt artist. Blaze has outgrown his modest carnival days, and now jumps over dozens of trucks, even clearing a football field full of running Black Hawk helicopters. Despite the insanity of his stunts, Blaze remains completely unscathed. This perplexes his crew, led by Mack (Donal Logue), who do not understand how Blaze continues to pull off his near impossible with such a wreckless attitude.
We soon learn that Blaze's untouchability was a result of his deal with the devil, who was protecting him in order to use him eventually. One day the devil returns, and Blaze learns the awful truth: that he is to become the bounty hunter for the devil. It just so happens that when you become the devil's bounty hunter, your whole body ignites in flames and your motorcycle gets tricked out. Simultaneously, Blaze reunites with his long lost love, Roxanne, played by Eva Mendes, who has become a television news reporter.
What transpires in the rest of the film is what you'd expect from a person who is a world-renowned motorcyclist by day, and a flaming (literally, of course) bounty hunter for the devil by night. Just your boring day of jumping over a few row of trucks with a bike, and then battling the demonic underworld. However, Johnny Blaze is not supposed to be your average leather jacket clad, chain smoking, badass anti-hero Rather, Blaze spends his days eating jelly beans and listening to the Carpenters.
Directed by Mark Steven Johnson, whose previous work was the undeservedly acclaimed Daredevil, Ghost Rider leaves no room for quality; its pervasive awfulness consumes every aspect of the film. The writing, direction, acting, and editing all reek of a nearly two-hour long practical joke. It's badness is so overwhelming, it's even questionable if Ghost Rider will be canonized as notoriously horrible and watched for a few laughs. I doubt one can even watch it as a joke, it just pains too much.
Between this film and the recently released 300 and last year's X-Men flick, the comic book to big screen franchise is a dying breed. Though it doesn't help that Ghost Rider is laced with lines like "He may have my soul. But he doesn't have my spirit!", it is fair to say that this particular adaptation was doomed from the beginning. When producers have to unearth a character that is more laughable than frightening, I think it's reasonable to request them to stop or, as is the case with Ghost Rider, plead for mercy.
