Movie Review: Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance

In 2007, Ghost Rider tarnished the movie screens with its poor acting, poor plot, and poor directing. Though it managed to make more than double it’s budget back in box office tickets, with over 50 million dollars made during the opening weekend. This was enough of a profit to justify a sequel.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance  can be described in five words...

Holy. Crap. On. A. Stick.

I honestly didn’t think the movie could be worse than the first one. But, I was amazed at how bad it was as I watched it. This is probably the worst Marvel Comics property released to date.

The effects were amped up this time, and looked fairly decent. Though the cinematography was bad enough to make me want to shut my eyes until the fighting was over. I can handle camera movements that move with the fighting, a la the Bourne movies, but not when the camera doesn’t move fluidly with the fighting. It gives off a terrible shaky-cam feel that is more distracting than effective.

Just like the first movie, you couldn’t find a reason to really care about the characters enough to see if they can come through their predicament. It certainly wasn’t because of the acting. This movie had some very talented and entertaining people in it. One main character was Roarke, the villian/devil, played by Ciaran Hinds. Hinds has his hands in a lot of films lately and that isn’t a bad thing at all. Also, Idris Elba plays a large part in this movie. Elba is best known for his work on Luther, a BBC series, as well as a part in last year’s Thor.

The weakest link on the acting side, sadly, goes to Nicolas Cage. Whatever happened to the man who did such great work in Raising Arizona, Matchstick Men, Adaptation, and so many more films? I suppose he had fun with this movie, going completely off the wall. But wow... it was completely unnecessary, very distracting, and quite annoying. Motorcycle insanity was way over the top and just far too drawn out for anybody really care.

While the writing wasn’t great or even good, it wasn’t Batman and Robin bad. The writers were just not made for this type of work. They have mainly dealt with television shows such as Prison Break, House M.D., and The Walking Dead. They just didn’t seem to transition well to movie screenwriting. Though, I had hoped that under the reins of David S. Goyer, they had a chance. Goyer is serious comic book movie screenwriter. He has done amazing work with the Blade franchise and he helped craft The Dark Knight story. Unfortunately, his knowledge of comic books didn’t help save this particular property.

Finally, the director, Mark Neveldine, chosen for this movie didn’t exactly inspire much confidence, with Crank, Crank: High Voltage, and Gamer under his belt as his only other directing work. I know everyone has to have a start somewhere, but I don’t see much coming from this director that will be captivating. Though, hopefully, I will be proven wrong.

Overall, I can’t bring myself to recommend this movie to anyone, aside from those who actually liked the first movie. If I didn’t have free passes to see it, I probably would have avoided this movie until I was forced to watch it, much like the first movie. I believe I would rather be ran over by the demonic motorcycle than have to watch it again, ever.

If you have seen this movie, and would like to add your thoughts in on your experience with it, then do so by commenting below.