Released: 12 June 2007
Originally Released: 16 February 2007
Director: Mark Steven Johnson
Distributor: New Line Cinema
Budget: $110 million
Stars: Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Wes Bentley, Donal Logue, Sam Elliott, and Peter Fonda

The Plot:
Motorcycle stunt Rider Johnny Blaze (Cage) finds his past literally haunting him when the fiendish Mephistopheles (Fonda) calls upon a blood debt from Blaze’s youth. Transformed into the demonic Ghost Rider in the presence of evil, Blaze is charged with hunting down Blackheart (Bentley), a rogue demon who seeks to acquire power to rival that of Mephistopheles!

The Background:
Created by Gary Friedrich, Roy Thomas, and Mike Ploog, Johnny Blaze/Ghost Rider made his Marvel Comics debut in the pages of Marvel Spotlight #5 in 1972. He graduated to his own self-titled comic about a year later and was at the forefront of many supernatural adventures in one form or another. In addition to cameo appearances in various Marvel videogames, Ghost Rider has popped up in other avenues outside of the comics; he cameod in Marvel’s nineties cartoons and an incarnation of the character later featured in a semi-prominent role in the fourth season of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2016 to 2017). However, development of a live-action adaptation of the Spirit of Vengeance can be traced back to 1992, when Marvel tried to shop the idea around Hollywood; in 1997, Gale Anne Hurd and Jonathan Hensleigh were attached to the project but things really took off in late-2000, when writer David S. Goyer, director Steven Norrington, and stars Jon Voigt and Johnny Depp were all associated or involved with the film in some capacity. By May 2002, Columbia Pictures had purchased the rights; all previous associates dropped out of the project and Shane Salerno was brought in to rewrite Goyer’s script, but eventual director Mark Steven Johnson did his own script soon after being hired to helm the film. Life-time superhero fan and nineties action star Nicolas Cage won the title role and chose to portray the character not as a hard-drinking bad-ass but more as someone desperately trying to come to terms with the curse hanging over his soul. The character’s visual effects were the work of Kevin Mack and Sony Pictures Imageworks, who painstakingly animated Ghost Rider’s flames on a shot-by-shot basis, with one of their most difficult and time-consuming sequences being the first horrific transformation and the digital transformation of the iconic “Hell Cycle”. With its final worldwide gross falling just shy of $230 million, Ghost Rider didn’t exactly set the world on fire (pun intended) and this was reflected in the reviews; critics were left disappointed by the film’s focus on humour rather than horror, with the dialogue and Cage’s performance drawing the most criticism, though the special effects were praised and some have since re-evaluated it as an under-rated comic book film. Despite being labelled as one of the worst films of the decade, Ghost Rider not only received this extended edition on home media but was actually followed by a sequel…of sorts…in 2011, that was a critical and commercial failure which, coupled with Cage’s disappointment with the role and franchise and the rights being reacquired by Marvel in 2013, dashed any plans for a third entry.

The Review:
Ghost Rider is another of those Marvel superheroes I’m not all that familiar with; unlike others like this, I can’t even say that I’ve been able to get a sense of the character and his incarnations and adventures as Marvel haven’t yet released one of their Marvel Platinum definitive collections for him and a lot of his classic collections are a bit overpriced for my tastes. I’ve always been drawn to the character, though, since he’s visually very striking and his powers and background really speak to me as a long-time fan of Al Simmons/Spawn, but the most I’ve experienced of him are his debut story and the Spirits of Vengeance: Rise of the Midnight Sons trade paperback (Cooper, et al, 2016), his appearances in Marvel cartoons and TV shows, and a few sporadic appearances in videogames. I’d love to read more of him, but I definitely wasn’t as clued up on the character as I usually am when I first went to see Ghost Rider. Hell, I wasn’t even (and still am not, really) a big fan of Nicolas Cage; I’d seen him in The Rock (Bay, 1996), Con Air (West, 1997), and Face/Off (Woo, 1997) but he never really clicked for me as an actor or personality because he always came across as being more than a little nuts. Thus, I originally went into Ghost Rider with quite low expectations; I was expecting an action-packed romp full of special effects and bonkers visuals and fights and that’s basically what the film delivers, though even I was hoping it’d lean a bit closer towards the dark connotations of the character and Ghost Rider’s more horror-themed elements.

The film is immediately handicapped by an opening narration. I’ve talked about this a few times but this really is a cliché that’s hard to get right in cinema; it makes sense to want to clue the audience in early on to what’s going on and give some lore and context to the world being presented, but it ends up becoming redundant as Carter Slade/The Caretaker (Elliot) repeats it to Johnny later in the film so it’s just another example of narration for narration’s sake. Anyway, when we first meet Johnny Blaze, he’s just a kid (Matt Long) working as a carny stunt cyclist alongside his father, Barton (Brett Cullen). Although he enjoys the thrill of entertaining the masses with increasingly dangerous and ludicrous jumps (to the chagrin of his father, who chastises him for being a show off), Johnny is frustrated with the lifestyle and playing second fiddle to his father and is determined to leave it all behind and run away with his girlfriend, Roxanne Simpson (Raquel Alessi). When he spots a convenient letter detailing the seriousness of Barton’s cancer, however, Johnny hesitates; his concern and desperation for his father’s welfare are all the leverage Mephistopheles needs to convince Johnny into signing away his immortal soul to keep Barton from succumbing to his illness. Johnny’s elation at seeing his father rejuvenated is soon dashed when the slightest twitch from Mephistopheles causes Barton to die in a motorcycle stunt, leaving young Johnny wracked with guilt, devastated at losing the only family he has, and burdened by the debt he now owes to the conniving Devil, who promises to one day collect on his contract. Having lost everything and fearing for Roxanne’s safety, Johnny opts to abandon her and hit the road, eventually growing up into Nicolas Cage. The now-adult Johnny Blaze has become a media sensation; famous for his privacy and death-defying stunts, we catch up with him in the middle of a cross-country tour with his entourage, which includes best friend and impresario Mack (Logue). However, despite his best attempts to overcome his fear, Johnny is haunted by his past, which is annoyingly drummed home to us through constant flashbacks to events we just witnessed, as though we’d forget what happen less than a minute ago. Constantly questioning whether he’s actually as good as everyone says or whether it’s Mephistopheles’ influence keeping him successful and healthy, Johnny just about gives Mack an ulcer due to his insistence on pushing his stunts to the absolute limit to maintain his reputation as “Mister Invincible”

Though he forgoes alcohol and drugs, preferring to swig down cocktail glasses of jelly beans and sooth his anxiety with the Carpenters (amongst other weird traits), Johnny is a tortured soul who is forever trying to outrun the literal Devil. When he happens to cross paths with the grown-up Roxanne, he sees it as a sign that his days of living in fear are over; reinvigorated with a newfound zest for life, he regresses to a child in his attempts to impress and woo her and, despite being burned by him in the past and her better nature, the budding reporter agrees to give him a chance. However, right as he’s about to begin his new life, Johnny is approached by Mephistopheles once more; rather than claiming Johnny’s soul, Mephistopheles orders him to track down and kill his son, Blackheart, and imbues him with the power of the Ghost Rider to fulfil this mission with the promise of releasing him from his vow once the deed is done. Although Johnny has no interest in doing the Devil’s bidding, he’s horrifically transformed into a monstrous being, a leather-clad demon with a flaming skull for a head and a semi-sentient blazing motorcycle for transport. In a change of pace from most superhero movies, Johnny actually confesses to his curse and newfound duality to Roxanne but, naturally, she doesn’t believe him and he just comes across as a madman thanks to his awkward personality quirks and madcap nature. Ghost Rider is a tricky character, in many ways; a supernatural creature with near-unlimited power, it’s hard to put him in situations where he would be vulnerable, so the film lumbers him with the caveat that he can only appear at night and in “the presence of evil”. Even then, and when faced with other supernatural foes, the Ghost Rider is a formidable creature; practically impervious to pain and injury, his wounds heal abnormally fast, he exhibits superhuman strength and dexterity, and he can supernaturally ignite and extended his chain and conjure hellfire at will. His most powerful weapon is his “Penance Stare”, which forces a victim to relive all the pain and evil they’ve done and, presumably, be consumed by it. What’s not made immediately clear in the film, however, is whether or not the Ghost Rider is a separate entity from Johnny or if Johnny retains his personality when transformed. It seems like he does, and Johnny can fully recall everything he did while transformed, but other times the Ghost Rider talks and acts very differently, but there’s no mention of Zarathos in the film and the Ghost Rider doesn’t say much, so it’s a bit unclear as to what’s going on there. Even more ludicrous, however, is the part when Johnny just takes control of the “possessing spirit” after reading a single passage in one of his occult books and stating he wants control, which both skips over any kind of hardship he might have to face and undermines even the slightest but of duality between him and the Ghost Rider.

Johnny (and the audience) are given some context through the Caretaker, a wizened and gruff old man whom Johnny stumbles upon after his first transformation. It’s the Caretaker who narrates the film and delivers the bulk of its exposition regarding Mephistopheles, Blackheart, the Ghost Rider, and the Contract of San Venganza, a binding note of a thousand damned souls which Mephistopheles covets and Blackheart seeks to acquire in order to gain the power necessary to overthrow his father. Mephistopheles is a bit of a contradiction as well; he can assume a human guise, affects the weather and environment around him simply by walking, can bargain for people’s souls, and grant unimaginable power to a human host…but is somehow rendered “powerless” to actively oppose Blackheart. Conversely, Blackheart has no such limitations; he can come and go as he pleases, lower the temperature through his sheer presence alone, drain the life and flesh from humans with a touch, and even enter hallowed ground without any consequences, to say nothing of being immune to his father’s influence while on Earth. Blackheart enlists the help of the Hidden, three Fallen Angels with elemental powers: Abigor (Mathew Wilkinson), Gressil (Laurence Breuls), and Wallow (Daniel Frederiksen), however we learn very little about them (or even Blackheart, for that matter, beyond his childish resentment towards his father and lust for power and conquest) and they mainly exist to give Ghost Rider someone to fight against. Indeed, despite Abigor being able to become practically intangible, Gressil transforming to earth and stone, and even Wallow having the advantage during an underwater skirmish with the titular Spirit of Vengeance, all three are dispatched by the Ghost Rider with relative ease (Johnny even offs Gressil mere moments after his first transformation, showing no hesitation or trouble with his newfound powers). Despite being fully aware of his father’s favouritism to the Ghost Rider, and showing a flicker of fear at the demon’s power, Blackheart is so arrogant that he expresses suprise when the Ghost Rider survives his futile attempts to kill him and bests his minions…even though he knows what the Ghost Rider is capable of so he should’ve known better. Blackheart puts up a bit more of a fight, but this is mainly because their final showdown happens at the onset of sunrise, thus dispelling the Ghost Rider curse, and because Blackheart “[has] no soul to burn”. Those who are familiar with the comic book versions of Blackheart and Mephistopheles will be left disappointed by their decidedly undemonic appearances; though both show signs of their true, monstrous nature and Blackheart eventually transforms into a dark-skinned demon referring to itself as “Legion”, neither appear as demonic forces, which is great for maintaining the actors’ likenesses and performances but not so good for matching the visually impressive Ghost Rider against similarly interesting enemies and leaves Blackheart resembling more of a try-hard emo than a menacing threat.

The Nitty-Gritty:
This extended version of the film adds a paltry nine minutes to the runtime, which mostly translates into further fleshing out Johnny’s youth and his relationship with his father but is most notable in an altered meeting between Mephistopheles and Blackheart, which changes the location and placement of the scene but basically serves the same purpose as in the theatrical cut. Even with these extra scenes, Ghost Rider doesn’t really seem to know what it wants to be; in its drive to avoid being too dark and scary, it veers way too much towards awkward comedy and bizarre inclusions. While many of these are exemplified by Cage’s weird take on the character, they’re not exclusive to him: Roxanne bizarrely takes a Magic 8 Ball to her date, but Eve Mendes fails to really impress as an interesting or forthright character and is mainly here to look hot, chew Johnny out, and be a hostage for him to rescue. To make things worse, the always-aggravating Rebel Wilson hams up her cameo like she’s the film’s comic relief (a role Mack fills wonderfully), and Blackheart’s minions are robbed of any sense of menace by their over the top performances and line delivery. Wes Bentley is equally guilty of this, with every line being delivered with a spitting, deliberate campness that completely destroys any allure and threat his character might (and should) have. However, it’s Nicolas Cage who absolutely tips Ghost Rider over the edge with his truly bonkers ideas and performance: I’ll admit, it’s refreshing to not see another alcohol-dependent, tortured character but Johnny’s reliance on sweets, pop music, and daft clips just make him seem like an absolute goofball…and he doesn’t need any help in that department! From his drawly Southern twang, his childish antics with Roxanne and the way he greets the paparazzi, to his over the top screams of anguish and joy when first transforming into the Ghost Ruder, it’s hard to really get a sense of who Johnny is since he just seems like a cartoon character on acid or hyped up on sugar, bouncing from mood to mood, dramatically pointing at people and growling “You!”, and chastising Mack for “steppin’ on Karen” or trying to talk him out of jumping over a field of helicopters. All I can say is thank God for Peter Fonda, Sam Elliot, and the underutilised David Roberts (whose Captain Jack Dolan is more of a nuisance than anything and the film arguably would’ve benefitted from replacing the police pursuit of the Ghost Rider with more development of Blackheart and his cronies); these three carry the film, playing the straight men in a glorified comedy and adding a gravitas to even the most ridiculous lines and concepts.

Thankfully, the film is also bolstered by its impressive special effects; although many of these suffer from a lack of polish (Blackheart’s arrival, for example, where he appears out of flaming rain and randomly screams at the camera for no reason, his minions, and the finale haven’t benefitted from age), it’s clear that all of the time, money, and energy was spent on making the Ghost Rider himself look absolutely top notch and bad-ass. Although there’s been some debate over whether Cage’s abs were real or not, Ghost Rider is easily one of the most visually impressive comic book characters on the page and on the screen; garbed in a spiked leather jacket, wielding a flaming chain, and having a flaming skull for a head, seeing him rocket down roads, leaving a trail of fire and devastation in his wake, is quite the spectacle and the flame effects still hold up pretty well. Probably as a consequence of how difficult the character was to conceive and animate, the Ghost Rider doesn’t talk much, and his action sequences tend to be very blunt; it’s all about ending things quickly, with as much visual and dramatic impact as possible, rather than having overly choreographed fight scenes or dragging things out. This works in context as the Ghost Rider certainly has the power to shrug off knives, blows, and even a truck to the face, to say nothing of leaving Gressil a charred mess of stones with a single lash of his whip. Easily one of the best parts of the film comes when Johnny is locked in a cell full of criminals, where he manhandles the lowlifes and reclaims his bike to race through the city streets in a blazing inferno while Dolan frantically tries to chase him down. This results in cool shots like Ghost Rider idling on top of the Southbank Pedestrian Footbridge, emerging from water completely ablaze, and racing up the side of a building to reel in a police chopper using his chain. This is also where he fights with Abigor; despite the fact that the Wind Elemental can become nigh-on intangible, even this creature is no match for the Ghost Rider, who easily immolates the Fallen Angel by whipping up a flaming tornado. The movie then makes a big show of revealing that the Caretaker was Carter Slade, the Ghost Rider who kept the Contract of San Venganza, and then completely squanders it by simply having him wander off to his death after accompanying Johnny to the ghost town rather than heroically die in battle with Blackheart, which kind of makes the entire reveal pointless beyond a cool shot of the two riding through the desert to a cover of “(Ghost) Riders in the Sky: A Cowboy Legend”.

For all his immense power and his lofty dreams of domination, Blackheart ends up being little more than a petulant child; he’s dangerous, for sure, and even Mephistopheles fears his ambition, but he’s really only seen as a threat to humans. Although he increases Johnny’s personal stake in the plot (as if saving the world from untold eons of darkness wasn’t motivation enough) by killing Mack, Blackheart loses a lot of credibility by taking Roxanne hostage to bargain for the contract. This is especially egregious considering Carter hid the contract in the handle of his spade, so Blackheart had the means to acquire it all along and just…didn’t…because he wanted to toy with his prey rather than be a little more thorough. The movie tries to escalate things in the finale by forcing Johnny to retreat to the shadows to summon his powers, but it just ends up seeming like the filmmakers ran out of money and couldn’t render Ghost Rider in his full glory for the final showdown. Blackheart doesn’t fare much better, either; after absorbing San Venganza’s damned souls, he gains a moderately more monstrous appearance but is actually less of a threat as he’s now filled up with a thousand souls for the Penance Stare to run through, leaving him a useless, catatonic lump of wasted potential for Mephistopheles to take back to Hell and punish for being a naughty boy. Despite the fact that all Mephistopheles has done is lie, it’s surprising when the Devil actually makes good on his promise of releasing Johnny from his curse but, rather than finally be free and live the life he’s always wanted with Roxanne, Johnny inexplicably vows to wield the Devil’s power as the Spirit of Vengeance. While this is treated like some big dramatic character moment and Johnny finally embracing his destiny, it’s another of the film’s many head-scratching moments: Mephistopheles can bestow the Ghost Rider power against a person’s will but can’t remove it against their will? It’s almost as if the film’s implying that the Ghost Rider is more powerful than the Devil himself (and, in actual fact, he is since Mephistopheles couldn’t touch Blackheart on Earth!) Of course, the real reason for this nonsensical ending is to set-up a sequel, but I’d argue we could’ve still gotten that while also offering something a little bleaker. Like, have Mephistopheles betray Johnny and say he’s still bound by his contract, but Johnny could still vow to put his powers to good use and to oppose Mephistopheles wherever possible. Instead, it just seems like Mephistopheles is all bark and no bite as he just throws a temper tantrum (clearly where Blackheart gets it from…) and promptly disappears to allow his greatest and most powerful creation to wander the Earth outside of his control.

The Summary:
I think the biggest issue with Ghost Rider, even for someone like me who barely knows anything about the character, is that it’s just a bit of a disappointment from start to finish. It seems like the filmmakers thought the concept alone and Nicolas Cage’s star appeal would be enough for the film to compete against other blockbuster superhero franchises and didn’t really believe in the source material or the essence of the character’s horror roots. While I’m an advocate that 12/15-rated movies are more than suitable for most superhero properties, Ghost Rider definitely feels like it would’ve benefitted from being a smaller, more gritty horror vehicle rather than this bog-standard, over the top production. Considering the film is clearly pulling from classic horror movies like American Werewolf in London (Landis, 1981) and the Universal Horror movies, it’s a shame that it veers so far into the comedic and the absurd; everything from the acting, the soundtrack, and the overall corny nature of much of the movie constantly holds Ghost Rider back from being a more memorable picture, regardless of how good the titular character looks in the film. And he does look good, but the issue is the confusion regarding whether there’s any duality between him and Johnny, how ridiculously overpowered he is, and the vaguely defined powers of Mephistopheles and Blackheart. I can’t help but feel a smaller production, one more focused on Johnny Blaze struggling to cope with his monstrous curse, demonic alter ego, and his past mistakes while the Devil pulls his strings would’ve made for a darker, more unique horror piece but, instead, the film doubles down on its star power and visual effects rather than trying to give the Ghost Rider a tangible threat or tighten up the script. It’s definitely not the worst film I’ve ever seen, and has some fun and amusing and cool moments, but it’s far more akin to the disaster that was Spawn (Dippé, 1997) rather than a cross between The Crow (Proyas, 1994) and Constantine (Lawrence, 2005) or even something along the lines of Hellboy (del Toro, 2004), all far better movies that came out prior to this and which I feel are far more suitable to the tone of the Ghost Rider comics.

My Rating:

Could Be Better

Did you enjoy Ghost Rider? If you’re a fan of the comics, how do you think it worked as an adaptation and what would you have changed? What did you think to Nicolas Cage’s performance in the film and the changes made to Johnny Blaze’s character? Were you a fan of the special effects, and what did you think to the villains and their minions? Can you explain why Mephistopheles has such inconsistent powers when on Earth? What are some of your favourite Ghost Rider stories and moments? Whatever your thoughts on Ghost Rider, share them below and be sure to check out my other horror-themed Marvel content!