Ghost Rider (2007)

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Sam Elliott, Donal Logue, Peter Fonda, Wes Bentley, and Rebel Wilson
Grade: B-

Despite playing a glorified carny, this is legitimately the best shape Nicolas Cage has ever been in. He’s ripped! If I looked like that, I would’ve demanded one more scene with my shirt off at the very least.

Summary

Every generation has some damned soul cursed to ride the Earth collecting on the devil’s deals. Many years ago, a Ghost Rider was sent to the village of San Venganza to fetch a contract worth 1,000 evil souls, but that contract was so powerful, he knew he could never let the devil get his hands on it. So, he did what no Ghost Rider has ever done before. He kept the contract and fled on his horse, outrunning the devil known as Mephistopheles or Mephisto (Fonda).

In 1986 at the carnival, teenage Johnny Blaze and his cigarette-smoking father Barton (Brett Cullen) do a popular stunt-cycle show, “Leap of Death”. In the crowd watching is Blaze’s girlfriend Roxanne Simpson. After the show, where Johnny makes a minor misstep by hitting a rock on his bike and narrowly avoids a fall, Barton chastises him for showing off to his girlfriend, questioning if she’d still stand by him if he’s in a wheelchair.

Sometime after, Johnny carves “J & R Forever” into a tree while hanging with Roxanne. He’s as happy as can be until Roxanne reveals she’s moving. Her dad is sending her to live with her mom. To add insult to injury, her father told her that Johnny isn’t good enough for her and he’s just a phase. She still loves Johnny though, so he suggests they skip town on his motorcycle. Johnny doesn’t think Barton needs him either. He wants Roxanne to meet him on the top of that hill at noon tomorrow, and they’ll leave together. That night, Barton is asleep on his chair with a book in hand. Johnny takes it out of his hand and looks at it. It’s a photobook with pictures of their family and a newspaper clipping of him and his father and their stunt cycle show. Johnny smiles to himself reading it before he puts it to the side. Next, he takes Barton’s pack of cigarettes from his hand and throws it in the trash. Once he does, he sees a crumbled-up letter. He takes it out of the trash to read it. It’s a letter from Barton’s doctor detailing how his cancer has spread. Johnny goes and works on one of his bikes to get his mind off things but is eventually interrupted by an appearing Mephisto. He saw his show and talks about Johnny riding for him one day, though Johnny just thinks he’s some random promoter and doesn’t think anything of the comment. Things change once he mentions how Johnny is worried about his sick father and how he could be the one to help him. Mephisto doesn’t go into specifics but asks if he were to give Barton his health back, would Johnny be willing to make a deal. Without question, an eager Johnny wants him to name his price. Mephisto wants his soul, which Johnny laughs off because he sees him as a crazy person. Even so, Mephisto makes it clear that Barton will be healthy by sunrise tomorrow. He just wants Johnny to sign his contract. Pulling out this scroll, he hands it to Johnny.

After opening it and moving his hand across the top, Johnny cuts his hand and blood falls onto the dotted line. According to Mephisto, this is good enough to make it official.

Johnny wakes up in bed the next morning. Barton is up and about and is as happy as can be. He gives Johnny the good news. Though he couldn’t tell Johnny he was sick in the first place and was working up the nerve to do so, it’s a moot point now because he’s not sick anymore. He just got back from a doctor’s visit and the x-rays showed everything was fine. Once he leaves their trailer to get ready for the carnival show, Johnny is happy but quickly realizes the deal he signed with the devil was all very real. At the show, Mephisto watches from afar and uses his power to make sure Barton fails his motorcycle jump. Barton dies seconds after as Johnny goes to check on him. Looking up, Johnny sees Mephisto’s silhouette in the distance before it disappears. Riding his motorcycle to the edge of town, Mephisto appears in front of him and flashes a demon in front of his face to jumps scare Johnny off the bike and to the ground. Mephisto explains that Johnny is no good to him dead. Johnny rightfully accuses Mephisto of killing Barton, and he points out that the deal was to cure Barton’s cancer. Other than that, he didn’t want Barton in-between them. Johnny tries to punch him, but Mephisto disappears and reappears behind him while detailing what’s to come. One day, he is going to need Johnny, and he will be back for him. Until then, he will be watching. Pressing down on Johnny’s chest to give him fiery powers while freezing him where he stands, he tells Johnny to forget about friends, family, and love. He’s now property of Mephisto. As the rain falls, Johnny drives by the top of the hill where Roxanne is waiting for him. They share eye contact, but Johnny drives right past her.

In the present day, a now grown Johnny Blaze (Cage) is doing his own stunt-cycle show and is a nationwide phenomenon. The fearless Johnny is at his most recent event and attempts a jump over a line of semi-trucks. In the midst of it, he gets visions of his contract with Mephisto, lands on the other side, and smacks his head on the front tire of his back on the landing. It’s a nasty crash and any normal man would be dead. The crew comes over to him, and his best friend and crew member Mack (Logue) takes off Johnny’s helmet to see if he’s alright. Miraculously, he’s fine and asks if the bike is okay instead. Mack gives him his sunglasses, helps him up, and the crowd goes wild. On the tour bus on the way to Texas, the crew is playing cards. Johnny is reading while Mack plays the Johnny Blaze video game, ironically crashing and failing the level. Mack suggests Johnny have a beer to relax, but he reminds Mack that alcohol gives him nightmares. Instead, he’s eating red and yellow jellybeans out of a martini glass. Mack turns on the TV to a news report about Johnny calling him the greatest stunt rider of all time, though it takes a turn when the reporter wonders how long he can cheat death after his most recent stunt. He’s only teasing it more, as Johnny’s next jump will be an entire football field from field goal to field goal. Mack turns off the TV and let’s Johnny know he could’ve died today, but Johnny just passes it off as being lucky. Mack isn’t buying it. He must have an angel watching over him, but Johnny knows it’s quite literally the exact opposite. At a saloon in the desert, a Hell’s Angels member hangs outside the door. Once he’s given his beer, it strangely freezes up. Other demon Blackheart (Bentley) shows up to the bar. After a comment about how there are only “Angels” in there and if he has a problem with it, Blackheart grabs the man by the chest and deteriorates his entire body with his grasp before confirming he does have a problem with it.

Johnny and Mack get back to Johnny’s place where Mack comments how there’s no lock to his elevator lift and how the place needs a woman’s touch. Next, Mack takes a look at a few of Johnny’s books centered on the supernatural while Johnny tries to relax by eating more jellybeans in his martini glass and turning on some video where a chimpanzee does karate.

Mack turns off the TV and the music to question why Johnny is jumping on the anniversary of his dad’s accident. On top of that, the jump is insane and Johnny piling on by putting cars in between the field goals makes it even worse. He wants to know why Johnny is going this far with it, but Johnny strangely says that it’s to prove it’s him doing it. He then goes on asking if Mack believes in people getting second chances. If someone makes a mistake, should they pay for it every day for the rest of their lives? Mack thinks he’s talking about Barton, but Johnny just says he’s looking for a sign and if he can turn a negative into a positive. He vaguely talks about wanting a second chance too. Bypassing this, Mack just wants him to take the cars out of the jump at the very least, so he agrees to think about it. At the saloon, Blackheart kills everyone inside including the waitress. This allows for him to meet with fellow demons Gressil (Laurence Breuls), Wallow (Daniel Frederiksen), and Abigor (Mathew Wilkinson). Blackheart has come for the contract of San Venganza. Legend has it that the contract was stolen and hidden not far from that saloon. He wants their help in finding it. When they do, they’ll take over the world one city at a time. When Wallow asks about Mephisto, Blackheart gets angry and tells him to never say that name. The next day at the Johnny Blaze show, Johnny gets ready in his dressing room and Mack enters to check on him. Wearing his sunglasses and drinking a pot of coffee directly from the pot, he ignores Mack’s telling him he doesn’t have to do it and just asks for Mack to bring his cowboy hat. Looking in the mirror, Johnny tells himself, “You can’t live in fear”. Johnny and Mack exit the dressing room to a bunch of paparazzi and reporters, and Amy Page (Kirstie Hutton) of event publicity tries to stop him for an interview. However, Mack reminds her that Johnny Blaze doesn’t do interviews.

Of course, this time it’s different, as the reporter is a now grown Roxanne Simpson (Mendes).

Johnny stops in his tracks when she reveals herself and agrees to it. Seconds before they go live, an enamored Johnny asks how her dad is doing, but she ignores him. Mentioning his three-hundred-foot jump, Roxanne asks what’s going through his mind at the moment. He talks about how good she looks, how he’s seen her on TV, and how good she is at her job. She appreciates it and is thrown off. She tries to steer things back on track but has to correct Johnny when he says he heard she got married because it didn’t end up happening. The interview ends after another awkward response by Johnny. Afterwards, he asks if she’s staying for the jump, but she declines. Not only do they have to get back, but she never liked watching him jump. She walks away and they share a look. Johnny smiles and tells Mack that he got the sign he was looking for. The cameramen Stuart (Gibson Nolte) goes with Roxanne to the car and tries to convince her to stay to watch the jump since he’s a fan, but she wants them to leave. Setting up for the jump, Mack thanks Johnny for getting rid of the fifty cars because if he comes up short, he’ll just land on the grass. However, this isn’t the case. Instead of the cars, the roof of the arena opens up and six UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters are flown down for Johnny to jump over. Mack is freaking out because this is ten times worse, and he wonders why Johnny would think of such a thing. In a flashback, Johnny remembers his dad thinking of the stunt years ago with a helicopter replacing a car jump or the ring of fire.

Johnny: “My dad thought it’d be cool”.

Mack: “…He was right.”

Johnny: “Yeah”.

With this in mind, Mack reminds him to hit the NOS halfway down the ramp. If he hits it too early, he’s screwed. Johnny isn’t listening. He just wonders if Roxanne is on the interstate by now, which she is. On Mack’s word that he has enough NOS to shame the space shuttle, Johnny attempts the jump right after their conversation, surprising even Mack. As he gets flashbacks to a young Roxanne, Johnny makes the jump safely, setting a world record. Taking off his helmet and smiling for the crowd, Johnny continues and drives straight out of the arena and on to the interstate to chase after Roxanne. In the news van, Stuart goes on about Johnny until Roxanne tells him to stop. Just then, Johnny drives right up next to the van trying to talk to Roxanne. She’s smiling but tries to hide it and tells Stuart to keep driving. Johnny drives to the other side to get Stuart to pull over, but he can’t because she’s the boss. After Johnny almost gets hit by a couple of trucks on the opposite lane, he drives ahead and stops directly in front of the van, forcing Stuart to stop before hitting him. Johnny doesn’t even flinch. Roxanne gets out to yell at him and talks about how she doesn’t have time for this because she has a story to edit, but Johnny points out how she could’ve said “No” to interviewing him when they asked her, which is a good point. Again, she tries to hide her smile before apologizing to the drivers behind her. He asks her out for dinner, but she questions whether he just wants closure. She understands how he was 17, witnessed a tragedy, and ran. She doesn’t have hard feelings about it. He cuts her off and kisses her, and she kisses back before pushing him away. Though she’s not entirely hyped, she agrees to dinner at the restaurant in her hotel at 8PM. After Johnny yells in excitement, she makes sure to tell him to not be late. As they drive away, Johnny tells her it’s a sign and destiny and all that. After this, all the drivers behind them leave their cars and approach Johnny for autographs since he stopped traffic.

In a park somewhere, Mephisto meets with Blackheart, Gressil, Wallow, and Abigor. Mephisto knows why his son Blackheart is here, but he insists the contract, and the souls are his. However, he can’t harm Blackheart here. With this, Blackheart makes it known that it’s his turn to lead. To combat this, Mephisto will activate his Rider to come after him, and Blackheart welcomes the challenge, promising to retire him and his father Mephisto. At 8PM, Roxanne waits for Johnny at the restaurant but hasn’t received any texts from him yet to explain his absence. Johnny is still at his home looking into his mirror talking about how he can’t live in fear, how he’s the best rider, how he deserves a second chance, and how Roxanne is a sign. Just then, his hands start turning red. He tries to put water on them, but they just start smoking. As Roxanne has the waiter pour another glass of wine, Johnny walks out into the street in confusion. He sees his motorcycle there, and it’s on. Next, Mephisto appears, and Johnny knows what’s up. Mephisto explains how he’s been there this whole time and for all of Johnny’s death-defying jumps. He credits his investment, but it’s time for Mephisto to cash-in on his favor. He wants Johnny to find Blackheart and kill him, but Johnny refuses and gets on his motorcycle. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. Johnny is under contract with Mephisto, so he has to. As he points this out, Johnny gets stuck to his motorcycle. Even though he promises to return his soul if he succeeds, Johnny refuses. Despite his refusal to comply, Johnny doesn’t have a choice. Using his staff, Mephisto drops it to the ground and sends Johnny on the motorcycle at hundreds of miles an hour, leaving a streak of flames behind where the tire goes. At some railyard, a guy tries to stop Blackheart and his crew for trespassing. Blackheart asks about the graveyard that used to be in the location they’re at, and the guy says St. Michael’s church moved them a long time ago. Blackheart kills the guy, and they leave.

Johnny falls off his bike in the railyard, and his body burns him until he takes the form of Ghost Rider. Almost immediately after, Ghost Rider runs into Blackheart and the crew, and the fight is on. After being hung and hit by a semitruck, Ghost Rider recovers and uses a chain to lasso around Gessil, turning him into stone and disintegrating him right after. He whistles for his bike, touches it, and transforms it into a new bike fitting for the superhero, the Hellcycle. As Roxanne asks for a confirmation of her attractiveness from the waiter, Ghost Rider sees a local criminal attacking a young woman (Wilson) in an alley. He approaches, allowing the young woman to escape. Ghost Rider grabs the criminal, and the guy tries to stab him, but his knife melts. After forcing the criminal to look into his eyes to feel the pain of all the people he’s troubled over the years, the guy’s eyes blacken, and he dies. Ghost Rider rides on through the night. At sunrise however, he falls in pain because of the sunlight and turns back into Johnny Blaze. Johnny is near the graveyard and crawls over to Barton’s grave. Before he passes out, the Caretaker (Elliott) greets him. Following this, Johnny wakes up in bed at the church, chugs every glass of water on the bedside table that was placed there for him, and heads outside. There, the Caretaker is in the cemetery and looks at the grave for Carter Slade with an epitaph reading, “Into Paradise May the Angels Lead You”. Johnny greets him and asks if he’s seen his bike while adding that he’s feeling better. The Caretaker points him in the direction of his bike before telling him that his bike does look normal, assuming that’s what Johnny is thinking about. Then, he adds on that last night did happen, it was no dream, and it will happen again. Suspicious, Johnny asks who he is, but he turns it back on Johnny before outing him as the Ghost Rider and how he should get used to it because it will be a lot easier for him. If not, he’s got a spot in the graveyard picked out for him.

Johnny grabs his bike to leave, but the Caretaker continues. He knows Blackheart and his group have seen Johnny, and they’ll be waiting for him. Johnny is going to need his help if he’s going to last the night. Even so, he doesn’t want the Caretaker’s help because the last time he took a stranger’s help, meaning Mephisto, it got him into this mess. Johnny drives off as the Caretaker shouts that he can’t outrun this, and this day has been coming since the day he made that deal. Realizing the Caretaker is legitimate help, Johnny stops in his tracks.

“Congratulations, your chances just went from none to slim”.

My Thoughts:

A year before the Marvel Cinematic Universe began, the old model of adapting Marvel properties was still a big earner at the box office because fans couldn’t wait for their favorite superheroes to get the big screen treatment regardless of script quality. It was a fun time, a time when these movies were appreciated for what they were and social media nitpicking every detail wasn’t a concern like it is today. Really, the critics did the nitpicking for them, as they never jumped on Marvel’s superhero bandwagon until the MCU began. In the year 2007, one lost to time because of its sandwiching in-between the early 2000s crop of Marvel movies and everything changing in 2008 and beyond with Iron Man, comic book fans were treated with box office blockbusters Spider-Man 3, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and Ghost Rider. All three made bank and were entertaining in different ways, but they are more remembered for the criticism received from fans and regular movie critics alike for various reasons.

For the record, a lot of the Marvel movies pre-MCU pale in comparison to the modern films. However, it’s not like everything before Iron Man was trash, despite what retrospective reviewers may have you think. Everything has a starting point, and it took a while to get to what we have today. The older comic book movies from the 1990s and 2000s were great at the time because there was nothing to compare them to. Now, they don’t get the respect they deserve because of the comparison, which isn’t fair. They walked so everyone else could run. Though I can’t bypass everything simply because of their importance to film history since that’s not the purpose of reviewing, I just felt the need to respect this aspect of how the movie is made and the story is constructed. Regardless, a majority, if not all, are entertaining features in various ways. Not all of them are perfect obviously, but they have value. They all did their part in helping shape an era in film and define a generation of comic book fans who salivated at the prospect of seeing their favorite superheroes get an opportunity to become a mainstream franchise. It’s true that the ultra-fans were ultimately disappointed with some of the results, but these fans can be quite fickle and inconsiderate of studios trying to turn a superhero into a mainstream star for all ages to maximize profits, which is always the goal and should be taken into consideration when looking at the product as a whole. I don’t necessarily like it either because the studio shouldn’t be mucking up art in the way they do, but I can acknowledge this side of the business, which is why I’m much nicer in my reviews of comic book films than most. It’s impossible to make a perfect adaptation to a superhero movie because you just aren’t allowed to do everything as its written. Additionally, the entire production consists of different artists (the director, the star, the screenwriter, the producers, the studio who funded it, etc.), and they all have a different idea on how the movie and the characters should be portrayed. In a lot of films, this is a collaborative effort that can create something special.

On the other hand, in the case of a preexisting character and well-known lore readily available to the public, it can be troubling because fans are expecting something different from what the team behind the movie may want to do. Such is the case with Mark Steven Johnson’s Ghost Rider, a film that may not be the most accurate depiction of the superhero but is still a lot of fun for mainstream moviegoers that don’t take everything as seriously as the former.

The most entertaining aspects of the movie as well as arguably the most troubling aspects of the main character’s portrayal is rooted directly to Nicolas Cage’s interpretation of the character. On paper, the hard-drinking and smoking, skull and flames, leather-clad rockstar-like antihero is pretty much custom made to Nicolas Cage’s real-life image. Despite this rather obvious connection, Cage decides to take Johnny Blaze into a different direction, focusing on him being a loner tormented with his past to the point where he tries to ignore it. He’s still cool in the fact that he’s a stunt cyclist, but he doesn’t delve into the addictions that Johnny Blaze is known to partake in. Early on, we can see his disgust in his father Barton when he’s smoking, as it ends up giving him lung cancer, which leads to Johnny going through with the deal that would change his life. Because of this, he never considers it once. On top of that, he explains in the tour bus scene how he doesn’t drink either because of the resulting nightmares he gets, which presumably are about his deal with Mephisto or his former relationship with Roxanne. This Johnny Blaze is just dejected from society and is an awkward person to be around. He doesn’t get into his personal feelings about anything, not even with his best friend Mack. When they do have deeper conversations, it’s too vague for either of them to understand and Johnny pulls back before he reveals any serious detail for Mack to truly help him. Truthfully, this could just be a script problem. Cage does a good job at selling the mixed emotions of Johnny Blaze and his inability to articulate what he means, but since he never gets there, the dialogue is too ambiguous for its own good to fully grasp what headspace Johnny is in or how he’s coping. It’s a shame Cage didn’t embrace the attitude and the drinking and smoking of the character because the edge would have strengthened the characterization of Ghost Rider, one of the most badass superheroes to ever exist.

If it was more connected, these traits could have been added to the much darker Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance and would have fit seamlessly to make sense of Johnny Blaze’s evolution in-between the two films, making sense of his mental state and personal anguish in regard to the curse. Sadly, Johnny never becomes this, even when it would make sense. Again, it’s a total missed opportunity for someone as eccentric and enigmatic as Nicolas Cage, and this is coming from probably his biggest fan. Despite what I’ve said and when you take the tone of this movie into consideration, Cage still gives a highly entertaining performance. At times, he’s downright hysterical. Some of the decisions made to add depth to Johnny Blaze are so outrageous in the early parts of the film, you know it has Cage’s fingerprints all over them. It starts with Johnny being hyped with a special on Discovery Channel about a howler monkey and getting pissed when Mack changes the channel to a news special on his’s latest stunt (“Put the monkey show on.”). Then, you have random details like Johnny’s penchant for eating “jellies” in a martini glass (specifically red and yellow ones for some reason), his laughing out loud to a video of a chimpanzee doing karate in an effort to calm down, and his trancelike state when listening to The Carpenters’ “Superstar”. Him deadpanning all of these ridiculous character traits and never giving an explanation as to why his behavior is so strange is legitimately hilarious work. A lot of times when we criticize screenplays, the lack of reasoning and depth would be an easy thing to attack, but this is one of those examples where the actor is entertaining enough to make his odd decisions work. It’s not something you can teach. Some actors just have the ability to turn the bizarre and underdeveloped into supreme levels of fun and entertainment.

Once you let go of what you want Johnny Blaze to be and accept that you’re watching a movie interpretation of the character, you start to appreciate the take that Cage has of the superhero.

Some comic book fans can’t make the distinction and write it off immediately, but I’m a movie fan more than a comic book fan. I’m definitely both, but I’m a fan of cinema more. This is why Cage is one of the highlights of Ghost Rider, despite it not being exactly what the character is supposed to be. As previously mentioned, I would have preferred something more accurate to what was written in the comics, but the performance was entertaining enough for people to accept it for what it is. Admittedly, it gave us a lot of comedic moments that added more to the lore of Nicolas Cage rather than Ghost Rider, but a majority of it was laugh-out-loud funny, nonetheless. Only Cage could say something like, “Mack, you touch the Carpenters or that chimp video again, and we got a scrap on our hands” with the utmost sincerity knowing how funny it is. That’s the thing. People don’t realize how intelligent he is. They think Cage adds these types of crazy elements to his characters and its unintentionally funny. More often than not, it’s much more intentional than the internet would have you believe, with the remake of The Wicker Man being a great example of this. I was fooled into the internet rumors of how it was “laughably bad” because of an unintentional comic performance by Cage, but he’s said in recent years that this was indeed the intention. People just don’t give him the credit. Here, he had some fun with Johnny Blaze in a more obvious way and though the movie would have benefitted had it been more serious, I still had a great time. How can you not like Johnny chugging black coffee straight from the pot or him telling an interrupting Mack “You’re stepping on Karen” when the Carpenters are played in his dressing room before his big jump and being dead serious about it? Yes, Cage’s southern accent blows, and he slips in and out of it during the course of the movie, dropping it completely in the sequel and just going full-Cage (which should have been the decision from the start), but if he didn’t try this, we wouldn’t have gotten his over pronunciation of “I-talian” when discussing what restaurant to go to.

Really, you have to take the good with the bad because even the bad exudes entertaining results. The bad doesn’t stem from Cage at all either, and the romantic angle with Eva Mendes was simple and fun too, albeit with a disappointing end. The real problem is the other side of the coin.

The villains were terrible. They were underwritten, undeveloped, and hit every note that a stereotypical “demon” character would. Wes Bentley was only hired because he looks like that, and his three followers could only be differentiated by their powers. Despite the fact that they are fallen angels cast out of heaven by St. Michael himself and they all hide in the elements to wait for the end of days, they all still suck. They barely even looked different, as it was hard to pick them a part since most of their scenes took place at night. On top of that, none of them were interesting, and Blackheart himself was as one-dimensional as can be. Even when he kills a priest who is looked at as a gatekeeper of the contract, my reaction was unchanged. He doesn’t do a single interesting thing onscreen, unless you count his eyes turning red when he becomes Legion, and all of those souls enter through his mouth. Considering he’s the illegitimate son of the devil and plans on taking over the world as the leader, his battle with Ghost Rider should be one of epic proportions. Unfortunately, the character and performance are so one-note that every scene not involving the good guys is boring. The same can be said for Peter Fonda’s underwhelming Mephistopheles. We’ve seen the devil portrayed on film many times before, but his take may have been the most disappointing of the modern era. He didn’t do anything different as an actor playing the devil that we haven’t seen before. Fonda didn’t have to take things into the gonzo direction Nicolas Cage tends to do, but doing anything remotely different isn’t asking for a lot. He should be someone the audience can’t look away from when he’s in a scene, someone who’s intimidating and has an unmistakable aura about him that coincides with him being an all-encompassing figure who rules the underworld. Mephisto shouldn’t have to be scary, but the performance should yield an uneasy reaction from the viewer. Sadly, it’s a basic, by the numbers antagonist that possesses very little imagination or creativity.

The opening of the movie explains the background of the characters easy enough for casual viewers to digest, but the cliché teen romance between Johnny Blaze and Roxanne Simpson is comically bad. By itself, this sequence could have been turned into a pilot for some teen drama for The CW. It’s treated as a pivotal moment in Johnny Blaze’s life, but the reactions are so overly dramatized that it feels tongue-in-cheek. It doesn’t have the emotional weight it should, considering how life-changing the events that take place are. It was a rough start to say to the movie, though I will say that Raquel Alessi was well cast as a young Eva Mendes. She was very passable as a young version of the character. Even so, Ghost Rider only succeeds in the middle. Once Cage is introduced as the grown Johnny, we’re off to the races and it does a great job at building things up. Unfortunately, the clunky opening combined with the overwrought, murky, and unsatisfying climax is why the overall feature comes off as incomplete. After such a great build in the second act, the conclusion doesn’t feel like the powerful, franchise-starter moment that it should. Actually, I’d argue that Johnny’s final decision doesn’t coincide with how they wrote the character up until that point. He just wasn’t heroic enough as a person to decide confidently on such a life-altering decision when he was given an out. It never looked like he wanted the life of a superhero and Johnny himself didn’t seem strong enough morally to take on such an otherworldly responsibility and completely bypassing Eva Mendes’s fine ass. The only way it would make sense if they made Johnny look a bit more enamored with his powers. Though it may him look a little too selfish, it would make sense why he’d choose that life over love because wanting to fight Mephisto for the rest of his life seemed like a stretch for who he is portrayed to be throughout the story.

When he closes the chapter on Roxanne, he tells her, “Sure wish things could’ve turned out different”, but this doesn’t make any sense. Everything was left up to him! He was given the choice straight-up with no strings attached! He chose it over her, so this was completely his doing! It may sound altruistic on paper, but Johnny was never that guy, at least it never felt like it.

Going on that note, how in the blue hell could that waiter have the audacity to shrug his shoulders when Roxanne asked him if he thought she was pretty? Really? A prime Eva Mendes does nothing for you at all? Are you out of your fucking mind?!

The always badass Sam Elliott brings his wisdom and natural coolness to the role of the Caretaker, the mentor of the Ghost Rider and original Rider who dared to defy Mephistopheles all those years ago. With his unmistakable voice and charm, Elliott does a great job at explaining the bare bones lore of the superhero without getting the audience confused on the details. He was a great choice to beef up the supporting cast and his presence really strengthened the story where the villains failed. Being the Phantom Rider that started it all, a veteran soul is needed to play the role to make sense of the legend and give it gravitas. With this in mind, there is no better choice than the living modern-day cowboy Sam Elliott. Him and Cage partnering up, side-by-side as their superhero alter egos in the desert was an awesome sequence. Each line delivery is more heartfelt than the last, and each quote he states is something a viewer could write out and print on a poster. That’s how great he is in the mentor role. Nevertheless, it was a poor decision for that moment to be the end of the road for Carter Slade. If he only had one “change” left in him, why not ride it out into the final fight? Him going down in a blaze of glory in the climax to give Blackheart something of note to do while motivating Johnny to fight harder would have been a much better option. At the same time, I’d argue the opposite fate for Mack. I might be a bigger Donal Logue fan than most simply because of Grounded for Life, but he was the comedic presence that the movie needed to ground things. He didn’t deserve the fate he suffered. He was way too good for that. If anything, he was underutilized.

As previously mentioned, Eva Mendes was a great addition to the cast, and I did like the Roxanne character, with her being a reporter who still has some insecurities about herself in regard to her love life. Usually, she would be the love interest that the protagonist would fall head over heels for after seeing again after all these years, but Johnny only does to a certain point. For the most part, he’s still occupied with his abilities as Ghost Rider that he’s learning on the spot and is still trying to figure out exactly what he’s supposed to do. Though he does see Roxanne as his sign, he’s still of the “bad boy” mindset and forces her to chase him in the midst of his mixed priorities at that moment of time, despite him being the one who left her in the first place. It’s a reversal of what we usually see in film, and it’s enjoyably different. Going along with the humorous elements of the movie, the moment of Roxanne pulling out a magic 8-ball at the restaurant and getting mad at whatever answer appears was so ridiculous and inexplicable, it almost encapsulates what Ghost Rider is at its core. Who the hell would carry a magic 8-ball on them? Secondly, who would do that overexaggerated point that Johnny does when Mephisto shows up? I don’t know, but this is the type of humor Ghost Rider brings to the table.

The sequences involving Ghost Rider himself were as cool as advertised. He is the devil’s bounty hunter, and his purpose is to hunt down anyone who escapes from Hell. When you take one look at the Ghost Rider, it all makes sense. With the exception of the initial transition from Johnny Blaze into Ghost Rider needing to be a bit longer to allow Cage to go full Cage with it (it could have been The Wolfman levels of insanity) and the initial transformation looking like the skull was too small for the rest of the body, everything else that follows is as badass as can be. It reminds you how cool the superhero is and it’s very much a teenage male fantasy. With his chain weapon and lever-action shotgun, the leather outfit, the Hellcycle being one of the most memorable cinematic vehicles of all time (I hated the downgraded version of it in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance; this was its peak), the unforgettable flaming skull, and him stating in a haunting voice fit for the character stuff like, “Your soul is stained by the blood of the innocent” or “Look into my eyes” before he gives someone The Penance Stare, it does not disappoint. The chase sequences when he’s on the bike are exciting, as are the narrow close-ups of the hero as he rides, and the shot of him jumping his bike off the skyscraper and scaling down it was a CGI beauty. I also loved the small moment where he tilts his head and reaches for Roxanne before being shot at by the cops, showing that Johnny is in there somewhere, despite Ghost Rider taking over his body, proving to her what he said was true. Just the image of Ghost Rider riding at dawn is cool as hell, or when he drives off the bridge and onto the water while flipping everyone off.

The police station sequence was a good way to show off how Ghost Rider is activated, and his attempt to reveal his identity to Roxanne before it falls on deaf ears was amusing (“There’s nothing you can tell me that’s gonna surprise me”). On a minor note, I did think his taking command of his powers by just stating aloud how he wanted control over the possessing element of the fire within him seemed way too simple. Just reading Faust is enough? That’s it? This is somewhat mitigated by Johnny mimicking 1929’s The Skeleton Dance in the mirror and him later threatening to dig up the whole graveyard to find the contract before the Caretaker relents but still.

On a side note, the idea of the Penance Stare is an intriguing idea, but it’s executed poorly and is nowhere near as striking or imaginative as it should be for such a cool power that “sears the souls of the wicked”. Also, the final fight between Blackheart/Legion and Ghost Rider is underwhelming. You have moments where he picks up a fireball and throws it like a baseball at Blackheart, but it comes off as a comedic and doesn’t fit the intensity of the climax. The shotgun being used and Johnny turning it into a Ghost Rider possessed gun was awesome though. Another issue is how the superhero has little to no trouble at all defeating Blackheart’s minions one by one on the way there. Had he got some resistance from The Hidden, and Carter Slade got in on the action to help like I said before, it would have made a world of a difference. Additionally, why wouldn’t Johnny try to fight Mephisto on the spot, considering he changed his life trajectory for it? Why go off monologuing in the final minutes? The third act is just riddled with too many problems to ignore, despite how good the buildup is going into it.

Ghost Rider is underrated in a lot of ways. It’s not the best adaptation of a comic book film and takes a lot of liberties with the character and his universe that some may not be fond of, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun (pun-intended). Nicolas Cage is entertaining as you’d imagine, Sam Elliott and Eva Mendes play off him well, the CGI action is cool, and the superhero sequences where we see the Ghost Rider in all of his glory are exactly what we came to see. It might not be nearly as complete or cared for from end to end as it should be, but it’s a feature worth revisiting for fans who can’t get enough of superhero films or Cage in general.

Fun Fact: When the film was in its early stages around 2001, Johnny Depp expressed interest in the lead. Producer Avi Arad approached Eric Bana for the role but opted to cast him in Hulk instead.