Film Review: Ghost Rider

Pauline Kael, the patron saint of film critics, once famously referred to An Officer and a Gentleman thusly: “It’s crap, but it’s crap on a motorcycle.” Writer/director Mark Steven Johnson’s Ghost Rider may just be the ultimate crap on a motorcycle movie.

Yes it’s deeply stupid, and yes it’s full of shoddily created special effects and dozens of scenes that look like homages to other similarly crappy, CGI-filled movies. It’s still on a motorcycle.

And what a motorcycle it is. Ghost Rider’s bike comes when he whistles for it, it rides up the sheer sides of buildings and on the surface of water (beat that, Jesus!), and, when G.R. places his flaming, skeletal hands on it and says “Aaaaargh!”, it automatically pimps itself into a weird-ass monster bike with flaming wheels and a face like it’s rider.

Now Ghost Rider, star of the on-again off-again Marvel comic of the same name, is a tricky character to bring to the big screen.

His character design–a skeleton biker on fire–doesn’t exactly lend itself to real world rendering, and among the film’s biggest weaknesses is the fakeness of its leading man. GR’s skull is so over rendered with computers that it looks faker than a rubber mask (why exactly are there black backs to his empty eye sockets? It can’t be shadow…his head is on fire!).

But at the same time, his mode of conveyance is far more exciting in live action then on paper; a drawing of motorcycle, no matter how well drawn, lacks the visceral thrill of seeing one zoom by and hearing it roar, as can only be done on film.

Anyone who hasn’t blocked out the memory of Johnson’s previous Marvel movie, 2003’s Daredevil, had reason to fear the coming of Ghost Rider, and all signs pointed to a similar disaster–a February opening, Johnson reportedly still tinkering within weeks of the release, no critics’ screenings to avoid negative reviews.

Well surprise, surprise, not only is Johnson’s Ghost Rider fairly watchable, it’s actually an awful lot of fun in places. Give Johnson some credit for turning out a script that’s a lot like a grindhouse version of Goethe, and for giving the film the feel of a comedy rather than a tragedy.

And give still more credit to Nicolas Cage, without whose presence this project is impossible to even imagine. Cage plays Johnny Blaze, the world’s greatest motorcycle stunt man–he’s kind of like a heavy metal version of Evil Kneivel. He’s also a bit of an eccentric celebrity, drinking red and yellow jellybeans out of martini glasses and listening to the Carpenters during downtime

Cage calls up plenty of the old Wild at Heart fire, and he’s a blast to watch (ironically, the “secret identity” is a lot more fun than the hero in this movie).

But he’s just one piece of pretty smart casting (Can you see that meeting? “Okay, we take Nicolas Cage, doing his crazy Elvis shtick, right? And then, we set him on fire!”).

Eva Mendes is blessed with the pneumatic figure, pillowy lips and almost cat-like eyes of a 70’s Marvel girl, and she’s cast as Blaze’s one-time girlfriend who’s now a reporter (What is it with superheroes and reporters?).

Marvel movie vet Sam Elliott plays “Caretaker” an, um, caretaker who takes care of a cemetery and acts as Blaze’s coach.

And iconic Hollywood motorcycle-rider Peter Fonda is cast as the devil that Blaze does a deal with. Yeah, he looks stupid in his cassock and cane ensemble and terrible hair that would embarrass even Christopher Walken, and at no point does he actually ride a motorcycle, but it’s still some inspired stunt casting.

Unfortunately, it’s not all watching Cage try to set things on fire or flirting with Mendes. There’s still The Plot that must be dealt with, and it’s so intrusive and so thoroughly rains on the parade of the rest of the movie that it actually seems like it belongs in a different film entirely (Underworld 3, perhaps).

There’s this Maguffin Contract that acts as a major power-up to any demon that gets his hands on it, and Blackheart and the Hidden, who, despite the name, are not in fact a rock band want to get it to do something or other. So the devil needs Johnny Blaze to be his bounty hunter, and this leads to some fight scenes with Wes Bentley and three other guys wearing coats nicked from the Matrix sequels, and pretty much accounts for the “crap” part of the “crap on a motorcycle” formula that Ghost Rider so perfectly embodies.

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