Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance
2011 Directed by Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor
Synopsis
He Rides Again.
Nicolas Cage reprises his role as Johnny Blaze in Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance. In this gritty new vision for the character, Johnny is still struggling with his curse as the devil's bounty hunter - but he may risk everything as he teams up with the leader of a group of rebel monks (Idris Elba) to save a young boy from the devil... and possibly rid himself of his curse forever
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Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is the best comic-book adaptation ever made. The brilliant hands-on auteur pairing of Neveldine/Taylor continue their streak of incredible films by doing the impossible: making a good comic-book movie.
Sure, there have been good films that are based on comics, such as The Dark Knight and Spiderman 2, but those aren't comic-book movies. The problem with a director like Christopher Nolan (and to a lesser extent, Sam Raimi or Bryan Singer), is that they want to bring the comic characters into our world. For a film like Watchmen, which is based on serious material, this is not a problem, but most comics aren't serious properties. If you break down comics to their bare essentials, you…
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The original Ghost Rider movie was shoddily made, anemic and, most importantly, incredibly dull yet there should be something cinematic about the comic book character. The prospect of Neveldine and Taylor, the directors responsible for the wonderfully over the top Crank series, seemed like a perfect fit for our flame skulled anti-hero, so what went so horribly wrong?
Well if Neveldine and Taylor’s involvement in non-Crank films is anything to go by they struggle when they aren’t coming up with ways for Jason Statham to keep his heart ticking along. Whilst they have shown they work well on a tight budget this time around they appear to be curtailed by studio control too. At no point should this have ever…
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It's worst crime is not nearly being as offensive as it should be. It isn't at all, frankly and manages to be quite boring in the process. Slap an R rating on this and have the Rider go on a bloody tear ripping off heads and shit. Come on, give me that much.
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A film with a bad-ass comic book character, Nicholas Cage and the duo who made the Crank films, what could possibly go wrong? ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING.
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It's better than the first, but that isn't really saying much. The effects are still terrible. The story is even more muddled, contrived and all over the place. Nic Cage still isn't used to his full insane potential. There's some decent action. It's cool seeing Idris Elba, one of my favorite actors, in this but he's honestly been in and deserves a lot better. All in all, it's still a pretty shit film with just does a few things better than it's predecessor. When the coolest thing about the film is seeing Ghost Rider taking a flaming piss for a few seconds, there's something wrong with your film.
Also, am I the only one who thinks that Carrigan guy sounds exactly like Christian Slater?
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There is a kind of pleasant insanity to this film that makes it a bit better than the rather bland first one, but this still is by no means a Ghost Rider film.
I used to collect comics and one of my favourites was the Ghost Rider comic. Ghost Rider is a bleak, depressing and inhuman superhero without any kind of empathy. Its human host suffers from this as well but embraces it and tries to inject some humanity into the spirit of Vengeance, thus making a great symbiosis. This could make for a great film character, but here the emphasis lies on the action and it is more about Cage than about his demon.
Cage's interpretation of Blaze is…
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Pitiful excuse for a film. Remarkable failure.
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Bursts of possessed demented reverie from Cage, and searing visuals undercut by a somewhat deflated plot.
Ghost Rider 2 benefits from an approach by Neveldine/Taylor that is aligned with the comics, from its vibrant colour palate, to the fact that they don't consider themselves above the material. Like the Crank films having no moral centre or lesson to be learned, Ghost Rider has no unnecessary pretentions forced on it. It is an anarchic, spasmodic action thriller, with no attempt to elevate it as in Dark Knight, or huge fluctuations in tone, as in Avengers.
Obviously The Dark Knight and The Avengers are excellent films, but my point is that Neveldine/Taylor engage with this material at the correct level, just as Nolan and Whedon did with their source, and it results in something fairly enjoyable.
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This whole movie is pretty ridiculous. Nicolas Cage is so over-the-top it is impossible not to laugh at him, and the scenes where he is the Ghost Rider are some of the least ominous, least suspenseful moments I've ever seen in an action movie. Thank goodness I watched it with Jacob and was able to make fun of it the whole way through, because I would not have enjoyed it at all otherwise. Granted, I haven't seen the first one, but this doesn't strike me as a series where much continuity is really needed.
How it entered my Flickchart:
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance < Fish Tank
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance < The Cocoanuts
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance < Mockingbird Don't… -
Boring.
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better than the first
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Head crunchingly awful. Really, really bad.
The script feels like it's been knocked up in an afternoon. The acting is ham fisted, with the the biggest offender being The Cage. It's like he's doing an impression of himself.
Some of the aesthetic was nice, the shonky exposition was explained in a stylised cartoon flashback, but really, that's the only plus I can take away from this.
Awful.
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Despite the amount of things that are on fire in this movie, not enough things were on fire overall. A bland storyline cannot be saved by ridiculous images being thrown onto the screen once every half hour.
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I would do anything for Nicolas Cage.
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Somebody call Foreigner, because I know what love is.