Flamingly Bad

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

I know what you are saying. Mr. U, why’d you go see that pile of garbage? Well fearless reader, I go to the movies so you don’t have to sit through piles of garbage trying to be an exciting super anti-hero story. The question all of America and indeed the geniuses at the movie studio need to ask is why this movie was made at all, let alone made in 3D. I hate to beat a dead horse but since it is dead and I need not worry that it is in pain anymore, maybe I should beat more dead ones. Slightly less revolting than beating a horse to death…thank you HBO’s Luck. Yet I digress. Why was this movie even made? The first movie was a lukewarm attempt at best but it did make over 200 million dollars worldwide. Nicolas Cage did a passable job as Johnny Blaze, the stunt bike master who made a deal with the devil to save his father’s life.  All of this is explained in Spirit of Vengeance with a cartoon depicting the slightly changed details of the first movie.  Yet almost every critic and indeed the rabid nerd base that makes up the superhero demographic (and don’t get your panties in a bunch, I am one of you) flatly despised the movie and wondered how it could have gone so wrong. So I figured, like Green Lantern or Jonah Hex (slight piece of trivia, Spirit of Vengeance is directed by the same guys who made the craptastic Jonah Hex), that Ghost Rider had made his final ride into the world of movies.

Then came the flaming skull riding out in a trailer and I thought, well this could be…oh wait there is Nicholas Cage, this will be awful. All of this I knew and still I paid a startling $14.00 to go see this movie. Being stuck at your Dad’s house with a needy dog can make you want to take two hours of me time. As the movie started, the action was fast paced and violent. Buffy’s Anthony Head appeared for a moment but didn’t make it past the opening credits. I was briefly entertained by the idea that maybe they had made a good movie. Then Nic Cage enters and the movie goes to hell. I’m sure it is not Nicholas Cage’s fault that he acts the way he does but he is all loud screams, shakes and  cheesy eye bulges which they accentuated and turn his bulging eye into a blank skull eye cause that is not at all cheesier. That really is all he has to do here. It doesn’t get much better when the flaming skull appears and takes over. He seems to be the ultimate badass but can’t really do much to the bad guys but breathe on them. Seriously, half of the first Ghost Rider is out and a badass against you Hostel extras moment is him holding a bad guy and staring at him, breathing heavily. I know that one of his powers is a penance stare but even the first movie used the stare better. All he does here is stare at the guy. The guy is screaming, obviously in pain but nothing is a happening. And all the bad guys stop as though transfixed by the Ghost Skull attempting to make out with Yuri the cliché Slavic bad guy. He slaps people with chains and they disappear into ash but his go to move is as exciting as seeing the kids at Degrassi High stare longingly at each other, wanting to kiss but not wanting to. You know cause his flaming skull would melt your face. He is such a cursed angsty hero isn’t he?

So yeah, why did they make this movie? Well they probably had a signed contract by Nic Cage saying he’d appear in at least two of these garbage pictures. Appear he does and wow can he overact or can he overact? I don’t know what goes through his mind when he is making these pictures. He screams and does that thing where he goes from a line of dialogue to a kind of “Whoooop!” noise. He does not wear a bear suit in this but I believe that you could easily tell yourself that it is as bad as his performance in Wicker Man. There is a misplaced and awful voice over throughout the movie and the story seems to float from place to place and machine to machine turning into a flaming ghost ridden flamethrower. The large machine he uses to smash the bad guys with at one point was mildly entertaining. Yet there is really no redeeming quality to this film. I cannot emphasize this enough. Nothing is good about this movie.  The story, the actors, the special effects are all equally awful. At the end of Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance you are left thinking, did they really spend money on this thing or did they just set a bunch of things on fire? Well you think that and  can someone take away Nicholas Cage’s ability to choose his own scripts? Nothing good comes of it.

Mr. Unhappy sez: Too bad the only thing they didn’t set on fire was the film.

Next time I will review the new Amanda Seyfried movie "Gone" Here's the trailer...can't be as bas as Ghost Rider...right?

Mr. Unhappy Sez: Love those eyes...