Ghost Rider

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Every so often, you have to take one for the team. This was my turn in the site lines. Okay, I did want to see it, but I knew going in what to expect. If they release a comic book movie in February, they are dumping it. If they release a comic book film in May, they expect it to mint money for them.

In February, we went to see Ghost Rider. I'm sure the come-on to Nicholas Cage was you get to be a super hero and you get to do your Elvis impersonation for the course of the entire film. I hear you rushing out to see the film already.

It's pretty bad. You'd find it in the grocery store in the ham section. Peter Fonda gets to be all dark and foreboding as Mephistopheles. Sam Elliot gets to play Sam Elliot. It's different because he wears a hat. Eva Mendes plays the goofy eye candy.

The movie started with younger actors playing the roles of Johhny Blaze (He's called Blaze, get it?) and Roxanne. Society would only keep them apart. Wait! I heard that somewhere else? Anyway. The movie starts with a flashback but it's only about ten years previously from modern day. Why didn't they just use the young actors? Then we wouldn't get Elvis and too tight dresses, I guess.

The movie revolves around the quest to obtain a contract of a thousand soles, soles a previous Ghost Rider hid from Mephistopheles. Demons have come from hell to get the contract now so they can replace Meph and make hell on Earth. Blah. blah. Blah.

They took so long with the backstory, they didn't leave them enough time to develop the main story. So, every time Elvis Ghost Rider goes up against the demons arrayed against him, the demons go down like fine diet coke.

It's all very dramatic at the end. Elvis battles Meph's son. Elvis tells the Easy Rider to go blow himself.

Wait for the summer for the better Comic book heroes. Spiderman 3 is going to Rock! Or not.

[El Dingo]

I only collected 2 series from the 60s. One is Jonah Hex, probably the grittiest, most violent Western story pre-Deadwood. Like Zane Grey as illustrated by the artists from Creepy magazine.

The other is Ghost Rider.

Ghost Rider is the story of a deal with the devil. It's also the story of a man walking the line between two worlds. This man works as a carnival stunt motorcyclist by day, then hunts criminals as the terrifying Ghost Rider by night.

How a Hollywood writer could take such a simple premise and create an almost unwatchable pile of bloated screen-pollution is beyond me.

Bad acting, convoluted plot, gratuitous destruction, inane dialog and story pacing that makes the movie seem like it's slowing time minute by torturous minute.

The single redeeming factor is the 'Ring of Fire' MTV video sequence.

Please don't let them do Jonah Hex.