Sequel Baiting #1 - Ghost Rider vs Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

It’s new format time once again, actually the first time since the 4 issue test. Anyway, this is sequel baiting and up first is Ghost Rider vs. Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance.

Released in 2007 and 2012, neither film was massively profitable, leading to the rights reverting to Marvel and their use of the character in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Both films have received critical lambasting but which is better? There’s only way to find out…

Judge them by numerous categories!!!

What? You can’t get 2 movies to fight, that’d be stupid.

I’ll be rating the films on 6 categories, these may change depending on the film being judged, each one will get a rating out of 5 stars, whichever has the most stars is officially the best of the two.

So, let’s get started and look at the plot.

Plot

Ghost Rider is the classic origin story. A young man named Johnny Blaze is about to run off with his girlfriend when he finds out his father is dying. Desperate to get a movie going, he makes a deal with Peter Fonda’s Satan. His soul for his father’s life. Of course, because he’s a moron he didn’t anticipate the devil killing his father another way. Years later, Blaze has suffered a fate worse than death, he grew up to be Nicholas cage, oh and he can turn into a skull headed monster too. A villain named Blackheart has assembled a group of elemental villains to go after the contract of a thousand souls, because the Devil is sh*t, he employs the help of his Bounty Hunter, the ghost Rider to stop him.

On the surface, this plot is mediocre at best, it stretches out the origin far too long but the bigger problem is how many dumb moments there are in this. Blaze pulls faces in the mirror when he’s supposed to be out on a date. Said date is frustrated and checks her magic 8-ball. Guard at trainyard uses a lantern. Former Ghost Rider uses his last transformation to be an escort rather than help in the actual fight. The devil is sh*t. Demons can be affected by regular shotguns. And love interest can’t take a hint, and when he gives what could be considered a ludicrous lie, he doesn’t back it up despite demonstrating how literally earlier in the same scene.

This movie’s plot nearly broke me but it’s not confusing at least. It’s braincell-killing but at least I could understand it. I rate 1 Star out of 5

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance starts with a chase sequence where we don’t really know what’s going on. Turns out Blaze completely forgot about “owning this curse” in the last movie and is scared to let him out. A guy named Moreau seeks him out, hoping he could protect the child of the devil from being claimed and converted. The devil, because he’s still sh*t is using drug-dealing proxies to get after him. But as things unravel, Blaze must decide if he can be the Ghost Rider they need.

Once again, on the surface, not a particularly interesting plot. But in its defence, it does lack in stupid moments apart from the devil being sh*t, flaming p*ss, pointless firewalls, and Ghost Rider’s powers suddenly working in the daylight. Well, there’s visual stupidity on display but this is specifically about the story. The pacing is slowed by moments of completely unnecessary exposition. There’s still little beyond the surface and it doesn’t feature very much Ghost Rider action, although that may just be down to the budget being cut in half from the first movie.  The ending is a bit of a copout as well and there’s no epilogue to round things off properly.

Ultimately, the plot is not very good, but is slightly, just slightly better than the first one. 1.5 stars out of 5

Acting

Aside from during a couple of transformation sequences, Nicholas Cage puts in a very subdued performance in Ghost Rider, which is pity because Cage being over-the-top is when he’s at his most entertaining. Sam Elliott is in this movie and yeah… he’s Sam Elliott and I didn’t have the subtitles running. These two talking to each other wasn’t really easy to listen to. Peter Fonda puts in a semi-decent performance as the devil but he’s hampered by the fact he can do very little. Eva Mendes plays Roxanne Simpson, the woman who shook the magic 8-ball. I wonder how much of the problems I have with her are down to the script. Most of them, I expect.

There’s nothing especially horrible of note, everyone does their best with the material they’re given, just that material is awful, 2 stars

In Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Nicholas Cage is allowed to go all out and it is much more interesting to watch. Idris Elba prays Moreau and when they don’t try and flaunt the fact that the character’s french, it’s a decent performance. Ciarán Hinds is a significant downgrade from Peter Fonda as the devil, I suspect the replacement may have been down to money as Fonda did claim to be interested in a sequel. Again, the terrible script seems to hamper the performances here

Overall though, there is a slight improvement in the acting with Spirit of Vengeance, not a major one mind you, just a little bit 2.5 stars

Excitement/Action

It’s no surprise to me that when the Ghost Rider is on screen, it’s pretty awesome, and they have him go up against at least powerful villains. You see him shrug off all conventional attacks, including being hit by a truck. Ride his bike on water and up and down a building, transforming his bike, killing off random people and yeah, the action in this movie kicks ass. It’s a pity the rest of the movie is unbelievably boring. No-one cares about the stunt bike sh*t. The fight against the water elemental is shot in the dark and you can barely see what’s going on.

Overall though, the action is decent, I give a 3-star rating

Spirit of Vengeance has one great action scene, in the middle of the movie where he turns a chainsaw into a flaming wheel of death. But the rest of the action has major issues from the downgrade in effects, which I’ll cover in more detail later on, to the fact there isn’t really a powerful villain until the last third of the movie. Ghost Rider seems restrained in certain scenes, not engaging when he should and taking more time than he needs to. There really isn’t enough action and it’s not helped by the ultimately lacklustre third act climax.

The action is lacklustre in this movie, but that action scene alone warrants it a 2-star rating.

Character Work

Johnny Blaze is put in a situation where he has to face up to his past, in more ways than one. His deal with the devil finally comes back to bite once again and by the mother of co-incidences, seriously, it’s convenient as hell, he also has to face up to the woman he left behind without as much as an explanation. His character growth isn’t really that big a thing in this movie and his sudden decision to ‘own this curse’ at the end really fell flat. He does have some odd character quirks, like enjoying watching monkeys kickboxing whilst eating jelly beans from a martini glass and his constant face pulling in the mirror. I think they had it out that he has suicidal tendencies at the beginning but his fame as a daredevil doesn’t really factor into the plot aside from being a lame excuse for the police not to make his arrest public when he was arrested that one time.

Roxanne is a very special type of stupid in this movie. She questions him, most have covered other costs, but are there more. That’s a stupid question, a really really stupid question. He pursues after her, breaking several speed limits since she left before the stunt and clearly was in a hurry. But agrees to the date when he forces her to stop so not to crash into him. When he doesn’t show up she rightfully scolds him, only to come back later to apologise for no reason. Top that off with the fact they don’t even get together in the end, what was even the point of all this?

The villains are boring, Blackheart is petulant, his minions have no personality. Carter Slade exists only to give exposition and no-one is worth mentioning.

This movie does little character work, 1.5 stars

In spirit of vengeance, it’s about Blaze accepting his role as the Ghost Rider, which would be all well and good if he didn’t already accept it at the end of the last movie. Still this arc is at least a thing that exists. They do also make some effort to show some bonding between him and Danny, the devil’s kid, but it’s relatively shallow and isn’t very interesting.

Moreau had an interesting opportunity for character reflection as the climax approached. His entire religion tricked him and locked him up, that could be a cause for an existential crisis but it’s glossed over like it was nothing. They also like to remind us that he’s French for no reason. Idris Elba does not do a good French accent.

Danny’s arc is about his desire to be good despite his background and it’s done in pretty much the most cliché way possible. I’ll give him this, he doesn’t sit in the background and does sh*t but ultimately his character is boring and I can say the same about the rest of the cast too

Sorry, but I have even less to say about these characters, fewer of them have anything memorable, 1 star

Music/Sound

I’ll be relatively brief here because I don’t have a lot to say

Both movies have reasonably solid soundtracks for the movie, they both match the action, although Spirit of Vengeance’s feels more generic. The sound affects work at match the visuals. Ghost Rider has one of the worst end credits songs I’ve ever heard but there a few more egregious problems with Spirit of Vengeance, with the French National anthem playing in once shot and the Devil’s ringtone being the sh*ttest thing I’ve ever heard.

3 stars for Ghost Rider, 2 for spirit of Vengeance

Editing

There’s no doubt that the CGI in Ghost Rider looks a little dated, although I think the fire effects hold up decently well. It’s shot decently enough, although unnecessarily dark in some scenes and I have few issues with this overall, however it’s nothing remarkable either

3 stars awarded

In terms of editing, Spirit of Vengeance is destroyed by its predecessor. Shots are sped up and slowed down for no reason, there’s a phone call where the editing goes Looney Tunes to the point where I was expecting them to be interacting with the dividing bar. Several heavily expository sequences are done in animation, it looks sh*t and doesn’t blend with the rest of the movie. Plus, weird still images date the movie horribly. I know some say Ghost Rider looks cooler, but I personally cannot agree, the skull has just become black, that’s not how a skull is supposed to look, plus he’s constantly pulling faces and breathing on opponents rather than actually doing anything. Scenes with the powerful villain Decay happen with a black background for poorly explained reasons. But then I think of the fiery crane of death, and well, the pain subsides a little

I aware 1.5 stars here

Conclusion

Out of 30, Ghost Rider receives 13.5 stars. Whilst it may shine in effects it’s lacklustre story and muted acting mean this movie falls short of good.

Out of 30, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance receives 11 stars. Whilst the acting and story are slight improvements the downgrade in almost every other aspect means this movie is without doubt, the worst of the two.