(2007, 114 min) The Spirit of Vengeance makes the leap from the comic page to the big screen in this high-concept guilty pleasure of a superhero film. It's familiar ground for writer/director Mark Steven Johnson (Daredevil) and star Nicolas Cage, who proudly sports a tattoo of his character's demonic alter-ego in real life. However, the filmmakers don't seem to fully grasp the absurdity of a leather-clad, motorcycle riding skeleton, delivering an uneven film that is often boring, infrequently thrilling, but consistently bizarre.
Johnny Blaze (Cage) is a modern-day Evel Knievel, thrilling unbelievably large audiences with his impossible motorcycle stunts. You'd be hard-pressed to find stranger characterization: Blaze sips jellybeans from martini glasses, watches Lancelot Link-styled television programs and has an intense admiration for the music of the Carpenters. In a different film this would spell disaster, but Cage embraces these oddities with a degree of seriousness that is effectively compelling and perfectly complementary to the subject matter. Life would be fine for Blaze if only he hadn't sold his soul to the Devil (played with pizzazz by, of all people, Peter Fonda) during his formative years in order to save his ailing father's life. Since then, Blaze has been forced to live a Jekyll/Hyde (or, more appropriately, Banner/Hulk) existence as a literal Hell's Angel. Ghost Rider speaks in bad one-liners and isn't afraid to flip the bird at the authorities. Once introductions are out of the way, the film becomes an uneven mess. RPG-like villains who spout appropriately geeky lines like "Your Penance Stare doesn't work on me!" are introduced in the blink of an eye, coming across as mere script necessities. The same goes for Blaze's childhood beau, returning in the form of newscaster Eva Mendes, who seems to be vying for the title of worst actress in Hollywood...and by film's end, we may have a winner. Everything slows to a crawl during scenes involving the enigmatic Caretaker (Sam Elliott) who seems to know a bit too much about Blaze's inner demon. The character redeems itself though by surprisingly providing the film's greatest thrills during its third act as it transforms into an old-styled Western complete with a trek across the desert and a showdown at dawn. Great fun for genre fans, but serious filmgoers beware.
No complaints when it comes to the special effects used to create the title character. Ghost Rider appears in all of his flame-headed glory, his whip-like chains have a life of their own as he lassoes everything from bad guys to helicopters. The "Hellcycle" itself may be impressive to gear heads, but to the uninformed it looks more like an easily marketable wind-up toy. The villains, who range from slimy to dusty, are fun to look at, but are forgotten just as quickly as they appear, which is to be expected from such two dimensional characters.
Odd characters, inexplicable happenings, eye-popping visuals, bad script writing...these are the things a cult film is made of. It may just take a few years for Ghost Rider to be appreciated as such.
© TLA Entertainment Group
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