Ghost Rider passes over

By Frank D'Adamo
Collegian Staff
February 21, 2007

When watching a superhero movie, one generally expects great action sequences, a well-written story and empathy for the superhero. Then there’s Ghost Rider. Although the movie had potential to be half-decent, it did not succeed because of its weak script and uninteresting main character. In other words, Ghost Rider crashed.

Ghost Rider is directed by Mark Steven Johnson and stars Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes and Peter Fonda in this reduntantly special effects-laden action movie about a man who sold his soul to the devil. Johnny Blaze (Cage) is a daring stunt man, taking death-defying leaps over difficult obstacles while showing no fear at all. Much of this has to do with his past life with his father, as they were once a team of motorcycle jumpers.

Naturally, there’s that cliché that all superheroes have tragedy in their lives which cause them to change internally and externally. In Blaze’s case, he sold his soul to the devil (Fonda) to save his father, only to have his pops die the very next day.

During the day, Blaze lives his life of dangeous stunts, and then when night comes he turns into a flaming skeleton that has the ability to destroy evil souls who have harmed the innocent. But despite these awesome powers, Blaze does not enjoy his life much, seeing as how his former love interest Roxanne (Mendes) is back in the picture. He decides to break his contract with the devil. All he has to do is catch the devil’s son, Blackheart (Wes Bentley), and send him back to where he came from along with his crew of henchmen.

My biggest issue with Ghost Rider is the script – it was by far one of the cheesiest pieces of writing so far in 2007.

At one point, Blaze utters, “I’m the only one that can walk in both worlds. I’m Ghost Rider.” Let’s clear something up: It’s not all right when Cage says something like, “I’m Ghost Rider.” We know he’s Ghost Rider; we know he wasn’t having an identity crisis.

The special effects, while enjoyable, are redundant in my eyes. Johnson felt the need to constantly do the same shot of the transformation to Ghost Rider via close-ups of the skull firing up.

I tried to give the movie as much rope as possible, but in the end, it only turned out to be a huge disappointment. I knew it wasn’t going to be along the lines of Batman or Spider-Man, but I was expecting something half decent. Instead of having any decency at all, Ghost Rider proves to be a real burnout and not valuable for anyone who enjoys superhero movies.

dadamofl1@lasalle.edu