Ghost Rider, like Blade, The Punisher and even Daredevil, is a popular but second tier Marvel hero, basically a cult figure, and so the movies based on his comic book exploits don’t get the same grand cinematic treatment or mainstream media respect as Iron Man, The Hulk, The X-Men, Captain America, or Spiderman, and it shows. The first Ghost Rider movie (2007) was an uneven but fun mishmash of gothic horror, standard action heroics and B movie mayhem, and the sequel, subtitled Spirit of Vengeance, replicates that recipe with mixed results. What keeps GR:SOV from being a total flameout is the Ghost Rider him/itself. As in the first flick, the character is perfectly realized on film, in contrast to his alter ego Johnny Blaze, played once again Nicolas Cage, who himself took his screen name from a Marvel comic character, but whose incarnation of the stunt motorcyclist is absolutely nothing like the Johnny Blaze I remember reading about in the 1970s. Cage has basically reinvented Johnny as yet another in a long line of patented Nic Cage wackos, which pretty much works because no matter what type of role Cage plays, his trademark drawl and hush puppy eyes always make me laugh, so he might as well play it crazy, his specialty. I never buy Cage as an action hero, but his Johnny Blaze is more akin to the Cage of Vampire’s Kiss and Wild at Heart than The Rock or (shudder) National Treasure. The bad news is that his odd if entertaining thespian choices prevent his adaptations of the character to be as true to their source material as they could and should be. The good news is that this time he drops such distracting idiosyncrasies as the Karen Carpenter obsession and jellybean fetish, but ramps up the lunacy, since this whole Curse of the Devil thing is literally driving him mad. Cage's hammy performance is typically over the top, but also typically enjoyable. Still, the movie only really shines when that magnificently malevolent flaming skull is present, and that isn’t quite often enough to make Spirit of Vengeance anything more than a reasonably rewarding, retooled but not refreshing retread - a heck of an amusement ride, when it should be a hell of a thrill ride.
The movie switches settings from the American Southwest of the original entry to Eastern Europe, more likely for reasons of cheaper production costs than aesthetics, but this curious backdrop nonetheless winds up supplying a gritty, quasi-retro Eurotrash feel to the pulpy proceedings, augmented by the casting of classically sexy Italian actress Violante Placido, whose earthy but ethereal beauty recalls such gorgeous goddesses of the golden grindhouse era as Ingrid Pitt, Marisa Mell and Valerie Leon. The overcast skies, desolate landscape and nightmarish imagery combine to create an ambiance of dangerous decadence, no matter how silly and surreal the storyline becomes, though considering its comic book origins, it’s all contextually sound enough. The movie also looks and feels like a graphic novel, with muted color schemes punctuated by the formidable presence of our demonic anti-hero, but since the producers are pandering to a PG-13 audience, the violence is rather tepid and the sexuality completely absent. Even though this is essentially a kids’ movie, I consider this compromise a serious drawback since the plot concerns Satan (Ciaran Hinds, credibly replacing the ideally cast Peter Fonda from the first flick) making a deal to save luscious Placido's life in exchange for strategic procreative sex, planting potential for some graphic, gratuitous nudity and nasty naughtiness, which would be perfectly appropriate considering the character was created in the down ‘n’ dirty 1970s, when satanic sacrifices, devil worship and hellish hanky panky were drive-in (and comic book) staples. But no feverish flashbacks of monstrous mating are to be had here, sad to say. Conversely, both recent (and excellent) Punisher films were hard-edged neo-noir classics that didn’t pull any punches, particularly War Zone (2008), which was flat-out extreme in its delirious depiction of depravity. They also didn’t make much money. So the folks behind the Ghost Rider film franchise are much more concerned with appealing to the touchy morality of the mallplex matinee demographic rather than exploiting the exotic exorcism/eroticism elements of the macabre material.
Still, the Ghost Rider remains a compelling cinematic figure of mesmerizing menace, and his chief adversary in the film, other than Satan, is effectively realized as well: a zombie-like badass (resembling a Rocky Horror Picture Show reject) based on Ghost Rider’s comic book nemesis Blackout (played Johnny Whitworth), but who in this incarnation more closely mimics another Marvel mutant, Decay, whose very touch causes instant disintegration, though Decay was not originally in Ghost Rider’s rogue gallery and has been creatively “re-imagined” from his origins in Marvel’s mythos, where he faced Iron Man and Thor. This may piss off some purists, and as someone who was likewise dismayed by Mickey Rourke’s identity crisis as a nameless supervillain in Iron Man 2, also a composite of several disparate characters, I can relate to that disgruntled dispostion.
Ultimately, the best Ghost Rider film to date did not even feature Ghost Rider, but did star Nicolas Cage - last year’s excellent exponent of exploitative excess Drive Angry (read my rave review here), also released in 3D, but also a box office bomb. Unfortunately, I sense a pattern here.
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is now playing in 3D and 2D at the Alameda, Solano Drive-in in Concord, and other Bay Area theaters.
Will “the Thrill” Viharo is a pulp fiction author and B Movie impresario.
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