Ghost Rider

Kids, pay attention! Ghost Rider is perfect for an afternoon at home, better with popcorn and the brain in “switch-off” mode. A painlessly paced piece of crap, with a comically overacting Cage (who's working on his possible future reputation as "the Ed Wood of acting" film by film), a pleasantly feminine Eve Mendes, and cute comic book stylings, with Johnny Blaze's funny flaming skull being even cooler than Cage's laboriously glued-on toupee, and that's saying something. It's just a pity that Blackheart, the main villain, is a total loser who wouldn't even scare my cowardly hamster, and even more of a pity about the absolutely awful finale, which drops somewhere down to the bottom of the C-grade mud in the neighbourhood of Power Rangers. But whatever, 3 stars, I don’t care. Johnson's film is one of the weakest comic book adaptation in a strong competition, but definitely a notch in my guilty-pleasure trophies. (31/05/2007)

There’s plenty of unintentional stupidity, framed by an utterly desperate story with impressively decadent rules (probably pulled from the comic book universe), in which a burning horseman wrecks half a city just for the sake of it, only to then destroy a bunch of emo-villains with the grim gaze of a flaming skull It’s all combined with Johnson's routinization (the man can't even film a motorcycle ride) and Cage’s toupee. I can’t even call this a "guilty pleasure." Yet the film will go through the burner and in a few years it will get a chance to do it better. Then maybe an extra star will shine for it. But until then... Shit Rider. (16/11/2009)

Action, humor, darkness, and one big antihype. I don't understand what's funny about a cow mooing in three emotional/action-packed/suspenseful moments, but on the other hand, I also don't understand why transformations into Ghost Rider or wreaking havoc with a motorcycle are considered a cinematic disgrace. I don't know who expected X-Men-like psyche or Batman-like depression from M. S. Johnson, but his work brought me harmless relaxation. The kind of relaxation that was expected from a comic book a decade ago. For this old-school approach (even though sometimes bordering on uncontrollable B-movie quality), fiery Nicolas and the third star are flying high. (29/03/2007)

Mark Steven Johnson is an incredible bungler. He loused up almost everything that could kindle the suspense and darkness of the comic book. The only thing that he kindled were jokes that I admit were occasionally quite good, but mostly not. Cage enjoyed his role, without a doubt and his overacting (it must have been on purpose, otherwise I can’t explain it) can be entertaining in places. The special effects aren’t very convincing. Which is fairly pitiful, considering they worked overtime on them. Most of the demons look painfully digital and the Ghost Rider himself also is sometimes a bit shoddy. Although there are a couple of "must see" scenes (ghost rider motorbike and horse running side by side) which worked well, but despite it’s potential, GR is really bad. (22/08/2007)

The dumbest comic book movie of the last few years with an incredibly cheesy Nicolas Cage, whose haircut is more interesting than he is. Ghost Rider is terrible and Mark Steven Johnson is a loser of the first category. Something could have been squeezed out, after all, thematically it's not completely dead, but Johnson wouldn’t have to be pretending to be someone who can effectively combine romance (nothing special), action (very little), and mystery (laughable). The wannabe mythical plot adorned with legends is probably as exciting as the rampage of the Ghost Rider himself. Not to mention the fact that the director steals wherever he can (those who don't see Blade in the end should buy glasses), and not even the outrageously gorgeous Eva Mendes can save things. And the pile of embarrassing cliché bollocks? That’s something I haven’t seen for a long time. (16/03/2007)

The director of Daredevil is back, and he's reaped the same success as he did with the latex devil back in the day. Oh, the irony. Ghost Rider is awkward. Unbelievably. I didn't just send it to garbage hell because the film doesn't quite deserve it. The main blame obviously lies with Mark Steven Johnson, who would not have been able to film an interesting Forrest Gump script if he had gotten his hands on it. If everything and everybody else conforms to his boring directorial style (resulting in a bland Nicolas Cage, who was an ideal casting choice, a dull-looking and acting, albeit beautiful Eva Mendes, a ridiculous Peter Fonda and moronic villains), nothing good can come of it. Just a wannabe badass spectacle that can only please die-hard lovers of motorbikes and leather jackets and chains, of which I am not one.__P.S. Sam Elliott, who apparently reprised his character from The Big Lebowski (whether he knew it or not), made me laugh out loud. (10/09/2011)

Ghost Rider is an incredibly charismatic character, but what happened to her in the movie is simply ordinary. We have a "superhero" who is supposed to be ambivalent, but in reality, she is not. We have a villain who is only negative, nothing else can be said about him. Peter Fonda adds something extra to his character at least. Nicolas Cage didn't bother me either, I generally like him, but the script is just one big cliché that has to end awkwardly happily. This character could look completely different in the right hands. Even the western stylization doesn't suit it. (22/05/2014)