Review- Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (Columbia, 2012)

You just know that a movie is going to suck when you have a half dozen production companies slap their stupid logos in the beginning of the opening credits. I have yet to see a good movie that starts out like this. With my expectations already set low, this film shatters the bar on the suck-scale, surpassing The Spirit and even G.I. Joe as the worst comic book movie ever made. Even 2007's mildly enjoyable Ghost Rider is head and shoulders above this film.

It's hard for me to nail what made this movie suck harder, so I will list the suckiness in no particular order. I will start with the editing and production. Horrible, herky jerky, out of focus, overly bright computer treated camera work is the order of the day here. I think that they do this so that no one will notice how bad the dialogue and story are. I still have an attention span since I never watched MTV growing up or played video games in the last 20 years, so I loathe this aspect of modern film making. I concede to the fact that they make and market these comic book films to the lowest common denominator with all of the explosions and stuff, but this can still be employed tastefully. The stop and drag, super sped up editing is equally annoying.

Nicolas Cage is a terrible actor, and is not a good Johnny Blaze. He behaves nothing like the character in any of the Ghost Rider comic books that I've read, at least. A comic book adaptation film should have a character that at least resembles the source material. Iron Man is the gold standard for all comic book movies to beat. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is the booby prize.

I am glad that my wife got the times wrong and that we saw it in 2D. While disappointed at first, within 5 minutes I was glad that we didn't pay the extra $3.00 each for this turd. I was so put off by this movie that I wanted to leave. I even got up and got a popcorn refill during it. When I got back several minutes later, I don't believe that I missed anything. Indeed, it didn't detract from my enjoyment.

Gary Friedrich has been involved in litigation with Marvel/Disney over ownership of the character, which has made headlines recently. If I were Gary Friedrich, I would sue Marvel to keep my name off of this movie.

If you dislike someone, tell them to go and see this movie. Tell them awesome it is, especially in 3D. This is the best form of revenge that you can legally have.

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