Taken For A (Ghostly) Ride (Ghost Rider - Extended Cut (DVD))

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Product:	Ghost Rider - Extended Cut (DVD)
Date:	05/03/07 (200 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent action and effects

Disadvantages: Too light, the plot is rubbish, the love interest is unwelcome and the bad guys suck

Young stunt rider Johnny Blaze dreams of a new life and when he is offered a chance to run away with his sweetheart, Roxy, he jumps at it. But when he discovers that his father is terminally ill he finds his loyalties split. Whilst working on his stunt bike late into the night, a mysterious stranger enters the workshop and offers Johnny the chance to save his father’s life – in exchange for his soul. Unsure whether the stranger is mad, bad or both, Johnny decides he has nothing to lose and signs the deal. When Johnny wakes in the morning, to his amazement and delight, his father is miraculously cured. But when tragedy strikes later that day, it soon becomes clear that Johnny has unwittingly signed a deal with the devil, who subsequently promises that he will return one day to collect his debt. Johnny decides to leave town, leaving Roxy behind, heartbroken and alone.

Years later, Johnny has forged a successful career as a stunt rider, but absorbs himself in studies of the supernatural, never quite sure when the mysterious stranger will return, if indeed he ever will. A chance encounter with a news reporter introduces Roxy into his life, and for a short time, Johnny believes that his life may be on the up. But in a desert drinking hole, a bar full of bikers is slaughtered when something very evil returns to stalk the land of the living. The Devil’s son has come to earth in search of a powerful ancient magic and it would seem that Mephistopheles is unable to deal with the threat all alone. Unbeknown to Johnny, he is about to become the latest incarnation of the Devil’s bounty hunter – the Ghost Rider.

With unabated momentum, another superhero movie adaptation hits the big screen, the third in its genre for director Mark Steven Johnson. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the character, Ghost Rider is something of a cult Marvel Comics character that first appeared in the 1970s. In the thirty plus years since then, the character’s continuity has been somewhat disrupted with three individuals taking on the guise of the Ghost Rider, with varying abilities and powers, but it is the original Johnny Blaze incarnation that is generally considered to be the “original” Ghost Rider. The film stays fairly true to the Blaze origin, although the “penance stare” power used in the film was not one of the original Ghost Rider’s capabilities and there are various other characteristics that have been gathered from later incarnations of the Ghost Rider. Throughout the Ghost Riders’ various histories, however, the comics have been enjoyed by readers of dark, edgy supernatural stories, centred on demons, real or otherwise.

Johnson’s film is an uncomfortable mixture of different things, driven by different demands and requirements and bears more than a passing similarity to his previous superhero movies Daredevil and Elektra. Ghost Rider is arguably his best effort yet. In its good moments, it’s REALLY good. It’s just that it’s not good all that often.

Ghost Rider is a blockbuster first, a comic adaptation second and as such is filled with all the things that blockbusters need to contain. In doing so, my gut reaction throughout was that Johnson had compromised on many of the things that purists would hold dear about the series. In order to protect the 12a certificate, for example, the violence and language is clearly sanitised and played down, the result of which is a more family-focused film that loses the edge of the original comic book series. The need to fill the film with effects-laden action sequences means that the substance of a decent plot seems lost by the wayside and the story is full of pot holes. In one scene, for example, we learn that Blaze transforms into the Ghost Rider only at night and only in the presence of evil, but later, when confronted by the Devil himself, he fails to transform. Thirdly, the need to get a big name in the movie means that the choice of actor to play Johnny Blaze just isn’t right. Nicolas Cage may be a household name, but his suitability for the role is questionable. The love interest is excessive and largely unwelcome, too, with Johnson seemingly attempting to recreate the kind of angst-ridden relationship that works in Spiderman, but fails here.

The story is absolute bobbins. In making his deal with the devil, Blaze has consigned himself to act as the devil’s bounty hunter, released only when he has fulfilled his end of the deal, the object of which is never made entirely clear. His mission in the film is to round up a bad dude named Blackheart who seems set on getting up to something that is never really made entirely clear. In keeping with Johnson’s Elektra screenplay, three colourful sidekicks are also employed to increase the bad guy count and the potential for good versus evil face offs. It has to be said that none of the bad guys in Ghost Rider particularly inspires, and the choice of three element-based demons (dust, water and wind) seems a little contrived when pitched against the fire-based demon Ghost Rider. In fairness to Johnson, the character’s back history lacks famous / familiar enemies that other heroes boast, but you can’t help thinking that he could have made some rather more inspired choices. The devil, as they say, is in the detail, however, and it is hear that Johnson really lets the side down, with hastily-constructed plot lines that just don’t add up. The desert massacre is inexplicably linked to Blaze, supporting characters come and go like lost pets, some weird guy in a cemetery pretends to be Abraham Whistler from the Blade movies and Nicolas Cage acts as though he has very little interest in the proceedings at all.

Cage is at first glance a curious choice for the lead. Johnny Blaze has always been portrayed as impetuous, fiery and spontaneous, youthful and kind of hunky. Cage fits very few of these descriptors. His drawling dialogue, rather aloof approach and seeming boredom wear thin pretty quickly and I quickly concluded that he was a poor choice for the character. Ironically, Cage himself is a life-long fan of the comics and should have respectfully left things alone. The film would have been far more effective had the character of Blaze been played throughout by young actor Matt Long, who instead is relegated solely to playing the teenaged Blaze. Blaze’s love interest, Roxy, is played by the lovely Eva Mendes, who shares absolutely no chemistry with Cage whatsoever (and frankly, could do with a good shave.) The bad guys aren’t much better, with Pete Fonda’s Mephistopheles sporting a bad barnet and Wes Bentley’s Blackheart doing little more than he did in 2001’s Soul Survivors. The three elemental demons share some nifty effects (check out the water demon’s sloppy eye problem) but have too little to do or say to make any real impact.

The film was originally scheduled for release in the blockbuster summer season of 2006 but was delayed several months, reportedly to allow the creative team to improve the film’s special effects. In hindsight, it seems that the time was well-invested because visually, at least, the film is pretty cool. Cage’s painful transformation into the flaming demon is well-staged. There’s an ultra cool action sequence involving our demonic friend cycling up the side of an office block and battling a police helicopter and the climactic sequences involving Blackheart and a host of nasty demons are suitably chaotic. The Ghost Rider himself is probably the film’s greatest achievement, because he looks and sounds the part throughout. Some of the character’s rebellious touches peek out (flipping the bird at incredulous police officers) and his character remains one of comic book history’s most likeable anti-heroes. New touches are added too, such as a change in colour of his flame if confronted by someone he knows and / or likes. With the character’s origins now out of the way, a sequel could almost certainly work, as the character still has huge appeal.

But this is not the Ghost Rider film that I would have made. Whilst the film’s detail remains true to the original Ghost Rider, the feel and tone of the product is largely wrong. Johnson would have benefited from the approach taken by Stephen Norrington, who wasn’t afraid to make a comic book adaptation for adults when he made Blade. I would have expected a much darker, more violent, supernatural movie with a more complicated plot line and a few more surprises up its sleeve.

I’d still love to see a sequel. Ghost Rider remains the uber-cool character he always was. But I wouldn’t let Johnson anywhere near it. Enjoy Ghost Rider for its effects and action but don’t dismiss the character on the basis of this film because the Spirit of Vengeance has a lot more to offer than this.

Summary: The Spirit Of Vengeance hits the big screen - and misses the spot