2007 was a bad year for the superhero genre, and it gave us three films that ran the range from mediocre to awful. On the high end of that scale you had TMNT, followed by Spider-man 3, and then Ghost Rider. If it wasn’t laughable enough to cast Nicolas Cage as the spirit of vengeance, then the special effects, script, and direction did the trick. Ghost Rider stands as one of the worst entries in the superhero genre today. The bright side of making a sequel for a film that was universally panned is that you theoretically have nowhere to go but up. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance climbs a fraction of the way out of the pit dug by the original, but it’s still unintentionally funny. The only improvement is Director duo’s Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor adrenaline-fueled take on action sequences, leaving their signature mark but failing to require enough of the story or characters to bring the film up to the current standard. Quite simply, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance better but still very, very bad.
Since acquiring the curse of the Ghost Rider in a deal with the devil, Johnny Blaze (Cage) has been living his duty as the claimer of guilty souls, even as he seeks a way to put an end to it all. When he stumbles across a young boy named Danny (Fergus Riordan) with a mysterious connection to the devil’s earthly vessel (Ciaran Hinds), the boy’s mother (Violante Placido) enlists his help to rescue him. Also seeking to capture the boy is the devil’s hired gun Carrigan (Johnny Whitworth) whose continued run ins with the Ghost Rider leave both him and the demon cyclist with their fair share of scars. Finally, the devil gives Carrigan an ability of his own to fight back with against the Rider, only to find a Johnny Blaze who has sworn off the Rider and no longer has the means to stop the devil’s insidious plot to make the boy his body double.
Nicolas Cage used to be capable of giving performances that ranged from one film to next, even if they weren’t all good. Lately, however, he’s given himself over completely to hysterics and calling it acting. It seems like ever since the IRS went after him, every film he’s taken on has had the subtitle “The Government Wants My House”. He acts with eccentric moments broken up by a few seconds of solemnity. The variety has long since vanished from his acting, and the most interesting parts of his performance in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance are when he seems completely unhinged in the Ghost Rider’s grasp. It’s a new side to Cage’s psychosis and it fits the film.
The rest of the cast is equally unfortunate in their deliveries, with Idris Elba emanating an air of exasperation. It would be fair to say he phoned in, and in so doing still managed to give the most convincing performance in the film. Conversely, Ciaran Hinds as the devil incarnate, Fergus Riordan as the Devil’s new human boyish vessel, and VIolante Placido as the boy’s mother are entirely inconsequential. They could be played by just about anyone and have the same level of character. Hinds just has to act mildly menacing, Riordan just has to be helpless, and Placido just acts clueless. There’s nothing else to their characters, nor their stories.
In 2D it’s already hard to justify to paying the cost of a ticket to take in what should have been a direct-to-dvd feature. When you add on the price of 3D, that extra dimension really has to be meaningful, and though Neveldine/Taylor made great use of 3D to just give Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance added depth, it’s still not an essential part of the viewing experience. It certainly looks fantastic, especially since the directors have a style that gives momentum to even the most boring scenes, but as a whole the film lacks any real substance beneath the gloss.
"Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" opens February 17, 2012 and is rated PG13. Action. Directed by Brian Taylor, Mark Neveldine. Written by Scott M. Gimple, Seth Hoffman. Starring Ciaran Hinds, Idris Elba, Nicolas Cage, Fergus Riordan, Violante Placido, Johnny Whitworth.
