There are good movies, there are bad movies and then there are movies like ""Ghost Rider,"" which is so unbelievably, inconceivably, jaw-droppingly bad that it defies categorization.
It doesn't quite fall into the so-bad-it's-good camp, nor does it qualify as a genuine unintentional comedy; rather, it's such an aggressively lame failure on every cinematic level that it almost demands to be seen. After ""Simon Birch,"" ""Daredevil,"" and now this, writer-director Mark Steven Johnson seems hellbent on helming train wreck after train wreck, and after a few more pictures, he might just become our generation's mainstream Ed Wood.
Maybe that's giving him too much credit—Wood's gleeful affection for the cinema essentially smothered his actual craftsmanship, while Johnson seems to hate the movies and the audience to whom he panders. First, he butchered John Irving with disdainful sentimentality, and currently he's setting his crosshairs on the heroes of Marvel Comics, making horrendous, obnoxious, CGI-laden embarrassments that the masses inexplicably keep paying to see. And after this week's box office results, get ready for ""Ghost Rider 2""!
Our hero is the aptly named Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage), a daredevil stunt biker who sells his soul to Mephistopheles (Peter Fonda) as a young man in exchange for his father's health. But after pops kicks the bucket, Blaze ditches his beautiful paramour, Roxanne (played by Eva Mendes in the most cleavage-centric performance since Jennifer Love Hewitt in ""I Know What You Did Last Summer""), and proceeds to spend his life breaking stunt records.
This catapults Johnny to fame, which reunites him with Roxanne, now a TV reporter, but romance has to be put on hold when he transforms into, you guessed it, the Ghost Rider. Ostensibly the ""Devil's bounty hunter,"" Blaze in Rider-form drives a souped-up CGI hog, trailing fire around the city and hunting down muggers and similarly evil individuals so he can stare them to death (the Stare of Penance, to be exact, which makes them feel the pain of those they hurt in the past). But uh-oh, supernatural villains like Blackheart (Wes Bentley), who freezes people to death, lurk in the shadows.
Will Johnny be able to stare Blackheart to death, or will Blackheart freeze Johnny to death? Will Johnny overcome the Devil's curse and find love again with Roxanne? Does anybody give two shits (let alone one)?
Now, if you have even a modicum of taste, you know this sucks. But, thanks to Cage, who is one of our nation's most earnest actors, ""Ghost Rider"" will have you rolling in the aisles. Cage brings such authentic enthusiasm to every role he's in, regardless of the quality of the movie, and ""Ghost Rider"" is the funniest thing he's done since Neil LaBute's hysterically misogynistic ""Wicker Man"" remake (go on YouTube and watch the clip of Cage punching multiple women in the face—it has to be seen to be believed).
Whether he's swilling jelly beans out of a martini glass, enjoying some good old monkey karate videos or listening to the Carpenters in a Zen-like state (""don't step on Karen, man""), Cage is a riot to watch, and in the process of failing so badly at being cool, he somehow becomes cool. Nobody else is on his wavelength—Bentley is spectacularly wimpy, Fonda isn't around enough for his oily charm to make an impression—and Cage sells this drivel better than anybody else could.
Aside from Cage, every element of ""Ghost Rider"" is exactly the kind of mind-numbing sewage you'd expect from Johnson. He wastes Sam Elliott, who stars as the token plot explainer (pretty much the same as the Jason Robards character in ""Pet Semetary,"" except that this yarn regrettably lacks an Indian burial ground), gives his actors horrendous dialogue to work with (""maybe I'm lucky""—""hey man, I got a dog named Lucky"") and saturates the whole mess with perhaps the most unconvincing CGI in a recent film, as the Ghost Rider looks like the Terminator experiencing hot flashes.
Also, in a move most likely aimed at the 12-year-old boys this flick shamelessly panders to, Johnson shoots Mendes so that her breasts occupy more screen space than her face most of the time. Don't get this reviewer wrong, seeing voluptuous women pouring out of their clothing is by no means a bad thing, but there are such things as restraint and respect, and Johnson shows that he hasn't a bit of either.
In ""Go,"" Timothy Olyphant's drug dealer has the following to say about the ""Family Circus"" comic strip: ""I hate it, yet I'm uncontrollably drawn to it."" You may feel the same way, but keep in mind, that's because of Cage and only Cage, who cements his reputation as one of most entertaining actors to watch. Johnson, on the other hand, needs to be stopped before he slaughters more Marvel heroes for the sake of adolescent-fueled paychecks. Unless he sells his soul, Mark Steven Johnson will never make a good movie.
