Ghost Rider
Mark Steven Johnson, USA, 2007
Rating: 2.7

In Neil Peart’s recent book Roadshow, there’s a scene in which the Rush drummer encounters Nicolas Cage during a rare celebrity-filled after-party following one of the band’s shows. Cage confides in Peart that he’s struggling a bit in his career: blowing lines, things like that. In all his years as an actor he’s never had this problem before and he doesn’t know what to do about it.

Neil’s too kind to say so (or maybe it doesn’t occur to him), but the solution seems obvious: Maybe if Cage chose his roles with a little more discretion, he’d find himself more personally invested in his work. “Hey, Nick,” you want to shout, “how about ix-naying crap like The Ant Bully or Captain Corelli’s Mandolin or that Wicker Man remake? How about a few more World Trade Centers mixed in with pay-the-mortgage projects like the upcoming National Treasure sequel? And for goodness’ sake, if you’re going to do a comic-book movie, how about you choose a project worthy of your talents?”

Ghost Rider, it should go without saying, is not that project. The character, a motorcycle-riding spirit of vengeance most notable for its flaming skull, has always been one of Marvel Comics’ B- or C-list properties, one that several creative teams haven’t been able to figure out what to do with. The character gets a new book every few years to keep the trademark viable, and it inevitably flames out. His love for motorcycles notwithstanding (and unflattering parallels to his recent career slide aside), Ghost Rider makes you think “Nic Cage” as much as Russell Crowe begs to be cast in a Gandhi remake.

That said, Cage provides what little spark there is to be found in this mainstream mass entertainment filled with the requisite explosions and CGI-heavy battle scenes. It’s jarring to watch the actor inject some of his characteristic mannerisms into such a poorly conceived role: the wry line readings; his out-of-left-field fondness for the Carpenters and howler monkey documentaries; those Elvis-like poses straight out of Wild at Heart or Raising Arizona. At first you’re tempted to think that he’s picking up a check here, half-heartedly chucking a couple of familiar tics to make up for his character’s lack of definition. But then you begin to wonder if this isn’t the sight of Nicolas Cage pouring parts of his actual self into a property he’s clearly excited about (him being a comic-book geek and all). Either way, it’s a bit of a head-trip — a bit like watching Jack Nicholson sincerely hamming his way through, say, a movie about the Martian Manhunter.

Or maybe you’re just focusing too much on Cage’s performance because there’s so little else to engage your senses. In his third crack at helming a Marvel movie, screenwriter and director Mark Steven Johnson (of Daredevil infamy and the even-worse Elektra) constructs a by-the-numbers product with less visual flair than your average comic book and what can only be described as a criminally negligent use of his cast. The agreeable Donal Logue punches the clock as the concerned best friend and crew chief of Cage’s stunt cyclist Johnny Blaze; Wes Bentley (the disturbing kid with the camcorder from American Beauty) squanders his talent for creepiness as a soulless (in every sense) demon baddy imaginatively named Blackheart; Sam Elliott sleepwalks through his role as “the Caretaker”; and Eva Mendes, so fetching in Training Day and Out of Time, pouts her way through the film as the obligatory love interest whose intelligence and self-esteem are inversely proportionate to the size of her breasts and butt — under Johnson’s direction, she comes across as a poor man’s Cindy Crawford when she should be battling Jennifer Esposito for far sexier roles (hell, she’s not even in the same class here as the fetching Raquel Alessi, who plays her character Roxanne as a young girl).

And let’s not even discuss Peter Fonda as the devil, or the plot holes so wide that even the talented Blaze couldn’t jump across them (if Blaze is the devil’s bounty hunter, why don’t we ever see him out there, you know, collecting bounties?).

Ghost Rider, in short, is everything you’d expect it to be from the trailer: An empty-calorie action movie with intermittent moments of bombast and miscast big-name stars. As much as a Thomas Jane would be better suited to a film this wooden, you leave the theater remembering only Cage’s effortless charisma (that, and the appropriately dusty soundtrack, ranging from ZZ Top to an engaging techno-metallic cover of “Ghost Riders in the Sky”), and wishing he could find a big-budget, primary-color comic-book spectacle to match his outsize persona. He’s the only sign of life in this momentarily distracting conveyor-belt piece of movie merchandise, an intriguing ghost in a stiff, clanking machine.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 18th, 2007 at 2:05 pm and is filed under Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.