![]() People who claim the film's more "serious" and "faithful" to the comic are off the mark. But there are enough dramatic parts to balance out the quick-edited thrills besides, you get used to it BOTTOM LINE: "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" is a quality sequel that interestingly fleshes out the nature of the spirit that possesses Johnny blaze (I'd say more, but I don't want to spoil it). A more significant negative is the overactive camera that's annoying and draws attention to itself (hopefully this fad has run its course). I don't mind the story switching to eastern Europe since the locations are excellent, particularly the amazing cave-monastery, but there are other changes that I'm not so crazy about, like the charred biker jacket of the Ghost Rider, but this is just a matter of taste I simply prefer the cool biker "costume" as opposed to the dirtbag biker look. Another positive is the rockin' soundtrack. The hot female is Violante Placido, who's arguably an improvement over Eva Mendes. The devil's main minion is played by Johnny Whitworth, a different character than Blackheart from the original, albeit similar. This time the devil is played by CiarĂ¡n Hinds, rather than Peter Fonda, which isn't a big deal considering Satan could presumably take different physical forms. ![]() The story switches to Europe and, more specifically, Romania and Turkey, where the film was shot. "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" (2012) is a worthy follow-up with Nicolas Cage returning as Johnny Blaze. Really, the only thing that was disappointing was the villain, Blackheart, who was seriously scary in the comics, but not so much in the movie. The first film was an amalgam of the ideas presented in these two series, mostly the first, and struck me as the comic-book come to life. In 1990 a new version of Ghost Rider was introduced with a different character and it ran eight years. The book was canceled in 1983 after a ten-year run. Ideas were added as the years progressed, like the "penance stare" and Blaze's growing awareness of the former angel of justice, Zarathos. This was clear as the stories changed from writer to writer and one artist to another. When Ghost Rider came out in 1972 it was more of a general idea than a fully fleshed-out premise. The first Ghost Rider film from 2007 was fairly faithful to the comic. You may find a new B-movie comedy classic. ![]() But if you're really stoned or just want to see cool sh*t on screen for an hour and a half and there's literally nothing else to watch, go ahead and knock yourself out with Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. Not even the great Nicolas Cage is enough to hold this piece of trash together. So in a nutshell, you don't need to see this movie. Ghost Rider looks badass, the visuals in the big set pieces are nice to look at, and if you have no interest in the story you can definitely shut your brain off and enjoy the insanity happening on screen. To their credit, the CGI in this movie is pretty cool. You can't really blame any actors here because it's obvious the filmmakers wanted it to be a massive CGI-fest with stupid dialogue to lead action sequence A to action sequence B. Idris Elba is also in this movie for some reason and he's great in anything, even if his character is completely throwaway. You can tell he's invested in the role, and his dedication really holds this movie together. Nicolas Cage is always enjoyable to watch. But I'll be fair, not all of this movie sucks. I mean, the dialogue alone tries to take itself seriously but ends up providing really good unintentional laughs. So you may be asking yourself, "why give it a 4/10 if it's so awful?" Well, I'm a sucker for laughably bad movies and this definitely qualifies. The writing in this movie is especially horrendous did they hire a 10 year old to do the screenplay? It sure as hell seems like it. This movie just pisses on Ghost Rider's origin (literally) and expects you to enjoy watching sh*t blow up for the sake of sh*t blowing up. You can tell this is the same guy that directed Crank: the difference is that movie didn't need any substance because the premise was so fun. It's just a bunch of things happening on screen oozing with CGI to make up for the complete lack of substance. It throws you right into the action with no exposition. No part of this movie is fleshed out and none of it is interesting. The first Ghost Rider was campy and stupid, but it was a watchable popcorn action movie and it had Eva Mendes (hence, watchable). ![]() Is Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance one of them? Hell no. The guy has some hidden gems in his career. I'll watch anything the guy does no matter how terrible the reviews are, and sometimes I'll be pleasantly surprised, as was the case with "Seeking Justice", "Drive Angry", and "Kiss of Death". ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |