Movie Queue: 'Ghost Rider'

Starring: Nicholas Cage, Eva Mendes, Peter Fonda, Sam Elliott, Wes Bentley







This is the movie description I saw on Yahoo Movies: "A motorcycle stuntman, Johnny Blaze, makes a pact with a dark force, selling his soul to save his girlfriend. When the bargain goes sour and the girl isn't saved, Blaze is transformed, gaining raging superpowers. Based on the Marvel comic series." DISCLAIMER: SPOILER AHEAD.

The words highlited in red means whoever wrote this was totally misinformed.

As a teenager, Blaze (Cage) was part of a Father/Son motorcycle stunt show in a circus. He found out his father was dying of cancer and sold his soul (inadvertently it seemed to me) to the Devil (a well-preserved Fonda) to cure him. But he dies anyway during a stunt. He doesn't gain his powers right away, despite what the above blurb implies, but he has to leave his girlfriend behind because of it.

Fast forward some 15-20 yrs and Johnny Blaze has a stunt show whose popularity rivals Evil Knievel. At a performance, he meets up again with his former girlfriend, Roxanne "Roxy" (Mendes), a T.V. reporter. But before he can even go on his first date with her, the Devil pays him a visit and calls in his favor: retrieve a stolen scroll with the names of a thousand souls on it and destroy Black Heart (Bentley). Oh yeah, who happens to be his son. For the record, that's when his "raging" powers kick in, but only during the presence of evil. In the meantime, he gets a little help from a cemetery caretaker (Elliott, who looks the same now as he did back in the 80's as Patrick Swayze's best friend in Roadhouse); turns out he's former Ranger-turned-Ghost Rider, Carter Slade, who stole the scroll the in the first place. Now, Blaze needs it to save Roxy after she's been kidnapped by Black Heart.

There are some funny parts--besides the ones they showed in the trailers--like his penchant for eating red and yellow Jellie Bellies out of a martini glass, his bike looked real cool in Vengeance Mode, and on a scale of one to ten, the Cheesy Factor was about a five. All in all, it's not one of the best Marvel adapatations I've seen. Which is probably why there was no cameo of Stan Lee.

Review: 2 1/2 Snaps Up

Labels: Movie Queue