In order to save his dying father, young stunt cyclist Johnny Blaze sells his soul to Mephistopheles and sadly parts from the pure-hearted Roxanne Simpson, the love of his life. Years later, Johnny...
Ghost Rider rides the highway to hell, leading to a lifeless dead end of hopeless talent. I should've known. No, really. I should've. The same director who helmed that super successful superhero masterpiece known as "Blind Battfleck", I mean, 'Daredevil'. Perhaps Johnson learnt from his past mistakes when it comes to dealing with superheroes that mass audiences aren't entirely familiar with. Maybe, just maybe, the irreverent use of the "Cage Rage" could spontaneously combust this adaptation into a ghoulish inferno of apocalyptic excellence. Or, just to restore some remnants of faith, produce a film that is mediocre. Alas, not the case.
Ghost Rider is terrible. Woeful. Dreadful. Fully exorcising the ineptitude of amateur comic book adaptations that preceded this monstrosity and somehow tainting them even further, granting this hellish anti-hero no chance of retrieving his soul back. Johnny Blaze, the "Human Torch" who "flames on" whenever he needs to, sells his soul to the devil in order to spare his father's life. A supposed antagonistic demon makes his debut and thus Blaze must become a Ghost Rider in order to stop him from acquiring the contract of "I-Don't-Give-A-Toss".
If there was any ounce of literary creativity within this screenplay, or any other element of the film, I may have paid more attention whilst being perched on the edge of my seat from the sheer velocity that Ghost Rider rides his skeletal metallic motorcycle. Flames etched onto the road. Demonic dubbing that echoed the streets of wherever the heck this film was set. Cage screaming his lungs out as his face melts from the inside. It's fundamentally incoherent. No matter how much lunacy Cage injected into his vicious pointing or how minuscule Mendes' acting capacity may be, if the storytelling is executed with no common sense whatsoever, there's no point. None. And it's abundantly clear in Ghost Rider.
It starts off with an emotional acceleration, between Blaze and his father, which in turn produces some required apathy. After those introductory moments of tenderness were over, tackling an uninspired origin story, Blaze propels himself off a ramp and never lands. Look, he's still gliding over those CGI helicopters now! There were approximately seven minutes of action. Four antagonists, each harnessing a differing elemental power, are defeated in seconds. Don't ask me their names, I haven't got a clue and the film doesn't deserve to be researched prior to this decimation. No build up. Just a vacant stare and we're moving on. The absence of threat was abundantly clear, and as soon as Mr. Monotonous (that's the villain's name now...) reads a piece of paper and obtains glowing red eyes, the film was over.
So with no action or real substance, what the heck was happening for two hours you might ask? Just a road trip back and forth between a romantic sub-plot and Sam "Exposition" Elliott, spelling out a plot that had more lore than a frickin' 'Lord of the Rings' compendium. I just...don't care. If Cage didn't care, Mendes didn't care and Ghost Rider himself didn't care, why should I? I had to sit through two hours of complacent visual effects, for nothing to actually happen. The cheesy tone that Johnson outlined didn't suit the darker apocalyptic world that Ghost Rider resided in within the comics. I don't want to hear another "skull" pun. I don't!
And if there's only one thing I'm going to take away from this endurance test, it's consuming jelly beans in a martini glass. However that minor positive, which may or may not change my life forever, did not substantiate me sitting through the entirety of this boring adaptation. Quite simply one of the worst Marvel films in their canon, and I've still got the sequel to watch...
