Review of Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

I walked into this movie expecting it to be horrible. I'd read the reviews, which were, putting it nicely, negative. On top of that, I had seen Ghost Rider, a film that is perhaps the last entry of Marvel's early 2000s period when, after the success of Spider-Man, the company commissioned new films to be made chronicling their darker heroes. It worked with movies like Blade-not so much Ghost Rider.

In terms of what I was expecting, this film surprised me greatly. Don't get me wrong-it was a truly terrible film. However, it was only terrible in the sense that it was supposed to be a dark, serious film. Instead, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance accepts how horrible it is and uses that. This film does not take itself seriousley in the least. It is almost parodying itself, and I found it's type of humor to be akin to what is found in Saints Row: The Third. It is completely over the top, though it plays this for laughs rather than any wow-factor. The writers of the film realize that Nicholas Cage cannot possibly appear serious, so they go out of their way to portray him that way. When Johnny Blaze (Ghost Rider's alter ego and Cage's role) interrogated a man brutally and threateningly, my brother and I burst out laughing at how ridiculous he seemed. It seems that Cage even plays this to his advantage. If it was a comedy, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance would be almost a little bit good.

However, a large part of what makes this film so bad is that it was not at all portrayed this way. It was portrayed as a serious superhero film close to the tier of Iron Man or Thor. Every fan within the comic book community knew it wouldn't be that, but they at least expected the film to appear like its creators had taken time to craft the story or at least provided good action. The one point in the movie where I actually predicted what would happen (though not exactly how), right before the climactic battle, could have been a scene that met either of those films, but fell short.

The action does not make for an especially good break from the "humor," as most of the interesting and cool tricks feel done and bland. The CGI is nominal at best. The comic book backstory, other than the names of three characters, is totally ignored. The story itself took a step back to the midpoint of the first Ghost Rider, as Blaze now believes he is a Hulk-like monster that cannot be controlled.

The key to appreciating this film is to turn the brain off and enjoy the lunacy of it as much as possible. Even then, however, it is still a relatively bad film. If both the director and the writers had spent more time balancing the hillarious lunacy of the film and its potential for great action or how scenes progress, the film would have been a mediocre one, and a step up from Ghost Rider. Taken seriously, the film is worse than the original. Embracing the over the top nature of the film, however, will make it much more, but still just barely, palatable.