Hey guys and gals, here is the post coital review i wrote for Ghost Rider scarce minutes after having seen the film and had a beer with the lads, enjoy….

Super heroes. I will be totally honest with you when I say I have a deep and abiding love for the superhero genre. There is something mythic and beautiful about the costumed titans who have graced the pages of comic books since the late thirties. They represent something that speaks to us and our need for a saviour; someone to take us beyond the confines of our everyday lives. They are the modern embodiment of the divine which our ancestors looked to touch by creating myths and legends such as odysseus and arthur, or gilgamesh and so on. In a Jungian sense they are a part of a collective unconscious that is a part of all of us. Spiderman, and his alter ego, Peter Parker are the everyman raised up, Superman, is the half man half god, and Batman is the darkest aspects of humanity expressed in a heroic light.

Yet some are less clearly defined, is Daredevil the western equivalent of the blind swordsman, or the embodiment of blind justice? Is the HULK a wish fulfilment fantasy or a parable for the dangers of modern science, or simply an exploration of rage? At their best comic book superheroes are mirrors of our dreams and our fears. And at their worst… they are shameless titillation or mindless propaganda. Comics in general are the same, sometimes superheroes, sometimes literature. Occasionally both.

And comic book films have been much the same. From the ridiculous to the sublime, they range: American Splendour and a History of Violence both have shown us the depth and creativity that can be achieved in the translation from panel to screen. But then Catwoman and Captain America, the two schumaccer Batman films, Superman 3 and 4…Barb wire….. all have shown us that all the glitz and glamour can’t save something that is fundamentally flawed.

And then we get to the difficult red headed step children of the bunch: The audience dividers. Those films who are loved by some and loathed by others. HULK was to some, a fascinating study of repressed rage, and to others, confusing and ultimately pointless. Daredevil was almost universally disliked in its theatrical cut, yet its directors cut is the kind of superhero film that some people love. Ghost rider will divide audiences in the same way.

The sad part is… I know what side of the line I fall on. And its not my usual side… not at all. I loved HULK, both versions of daredevil I enjoyed, though the directors cut is much cooler. Spiderman has been amazing so far, and hell even Superman Returns I think has its moments of unbelievable beauty. But Ghost Rider… Ghost Rider is like the Alien Versus Predator of superhero films. It is confused, Stupid, artistically deranged, reliant on special effects and cleavage, and worst of all… its financially successful!

Nicolas Cage has been instrumental in the making of this film and has been a driving force in its marketing and promotion. He has always loved the character and as such I am totally fucking bemused by how THE FUCK, he could have let this stupid arse clown of a movie get to the screen. The Ghost Rider is such a cool image, the flaming skull, the chains, the flaming bike… but does that translate to the screen? Yes it kinda does. That is where this film is at its strongest, visually its pretty damn awesome. Yet the substance of the film pretty rapidly becomes substance abuse.

We are introduced to Johnny Blaze a stunt rider in a father and son team. In love with a hot chick, adored by fans and doin ok. Sadly his dad has the big C, and it is only when the original easy rider and hell raiser Mephistopheles (Peter Fonda) turns up that he finds a way to help. He is fooled into selling his soul (the manner of which is so “not his fault” it wouldn’t even stand up in judge judy’s court!) His dad is then killed and jonny is put on hold until he is needed. Oh and love interest girl is spurned. Hey so far, so good. No hassles, would have liked to have seen Johnny actually make the decision, the blood drop. Weak.

Years later, Johnny is Mister “It thang”, jumping shit and doing crazy stuff trying to prove he’s alive. We’re still ok… he eats lollies and loves monkeys on tv and the Carpenters…. HUH?! Ok…. I’ll buy it. He jumps over some choppers. And then chases down the hot chick. He’s funny and pretty fucking shit hot on a bike. I’m still buying it. His mates are all ok, not amazingly fleshed out… but hey, not that bad.

Then the bad guys turn up to fuck stuff up. And they do royally. The movie. Mephisto, is ok… he doesn’t feel the need to go all toothy too often. Black-heart turns up and its badly done teeth and silly make up and trench coats ahoy! Flash images of toothy ugly…. And then sidekicks show…. And its big hair and trenchcoats across the board! Elementals… one is damp, one has wind and one has a bad skin condition… ok. Whatever! Blackheart sucks souls out of folks and wants some contract… the generic whatchamacallem. The mcGuffin contract…. Ok whatev…

And then The Ghost Rider shows up…. And it all goes to shit! Its odd, its usually when the superhero shows up that the film kicks up a notch and really starts to fly… but here, The rider shows up and suddenly logic flies out the window…Now flaming skull guy is obviously a bit lacking logic wise at the best of times… but here we start bending our own rules and making leaps we don’t understand…his hands are burning, and then they aren’t, his bike is taken by mephisto, he chases it, gets it back, goes a riding, and ends up back where he starts… or so it seems….not sure… he takes out a bad guy, gets his chains, takes out a street punk who stabs him. Passes out in a graveyard.

Into Caretaker… great actor and shitty role. The puns start flying thick and fast.. “my skull is on fire”?!!!! oh come on… emo fat chick… really! He gets sewed up in the back, from the stab wound, without a SINGLE FLINCH! And is SO quick to heal that when he starts pulling funny faces at himself in the mirror (and showing off his ridiculous abs) we can’t see a scar or wound at all! But then mere scenes later he is shot by thousands of bullets and shrugs them off! He can ride up walls (batmobile in batman forever anyone?) he can ride on water… he flips the bird to cops… he can make people relive the pain of others they have hurt… yet he is still ok with stealing a crooks jacket and making it all the more spikey… He ropes down a copter just to tell its pilot how he feels… (incidentally props to the pilot who can recover that bad boy from a spin in a half revolution)

As our heroine’s necklines disappear down south, so does the movie. I kept forgetting that this was mean to be set in texas… possibly due to the terrible matte paintings, possibly due to the eucalyptus trees everywhere (apart from the big old oak in which the initials are carved) I am sure the addition of more cleavage is directly proportionate to the subtraction of logic. Mephisto seems to have issues with sunlight occasionally, the rider burns his way out… until it is no longer convenient and then its wax on and wax off! The bike…. OH the bike!!!! It’s a cool idea. The flaming wheels, the trail of fire. Yeah cool. But does it have a personalilty or not? Sometimes it winks its headlights at GR, and sometimes it is just a bike (which can ride perfectly smoothly over water that must be at LEAST five to six feet deep, without flooding the engine with water through the carby… If it was flaming I’d buy it…but tis just a bike at this point…or is it?! Who the fuck knows?! Why does it have chain link forks anyway? Its silly.

The chain… now… dear hearts… I would ask all of you. Go, pick up a chain, or a rope… or even a wire… swing it… is it THAT hard to get the look of it right? If its magical chain then show us that… but why does it curve when it spins? Ok the chain is possibly one of the few bits that isn’t totally annoying. But even still it looks like lazy animation to me. At least in spawn they were intelligent…. Crap, but intelligent and as such forgivable.

Now where was I plot wise in all of this?….. um. Black heart kills Johnnys best mate and kidnaps the chick. Sorry matt, or mack or whoever you were… the cleavage is on the line. Need to have the faceoff in the village we mentioned ages ago… and we need the macguffin thingy. Old caretaker man must have it… he’s mister exposition he seems to know all the important shit… yep. Its in his shovel. Lets make another bad pun… now lets ride as the two ghost riders, past and present. Another cool shot… yet sadly cool shots maketh not the film… so… the old rider is immortal… ok… I’ll buy that… but then after the big riding across the desert bit with the “ghost riders in the sky” music (which sounds cool in this bit but appalling in the credits) the old rider and his funky flaming horse fuck off just when they could possibly have been of some use! “Sorry only had one more flame on in me… used it to have a race with ya. But now you are here, you’re on your own, I’m going back to bein a guy and I’ll piss off to heaven, or wherever…., even if the dialogue certainly sounds like I’m gonna help ya out. Until I leave. Now you go and ride that bike through the water… to your final confrontation. Oh yeah watch out for the water elemental… in a town in the middle of the desert… with a moat.” Exit captain exposition, and lamest mentor in AGES!

The final confrontation…well, we’ll steal the whole sunlight transformation from pirates of the carribean (in reverse yes), well take the phantoms from Blade 1? Well add some totally laughable crash zooms to make it a western… (Sergio leone is rolling over in his grave) and now lets turn up the volume on the toothy and add some red glowy eyes… coz they are always scary. And some terrible terrible dialogue… “I am leeeeeeeeegion” I’m sure it’s a biblical reference… but for fuck sake british low budget Sci FI comedy has done it more convincingly! The supernatural shotgun actually looked cool in the trailers… where was the chain links in the shot? That was an interesting idea! Oh yeah lets put the female lead in unconvincing jeopardy… (was she even worried?) and then of course our big finale is a special effects orgasm of penance stare…., not to mention that it has been tried before, and it didn’t work coz blackheart has no soul… now he has too many inside him yet the sins that are revisited on him are those of blackheart… little confusing there. Who’s sins is he doing penance for?

For that matter… the penance stare… sorry, sidetrack… what good is penance if you are killed as a part of it? Nice work ghost rider, you go sending all the bad guys to heaven… with ash filling their eyes and body… right… whatever.

In the end, the Rider chooses to keep his curse and hence his power to do good. Ok… fair enough… seems old nicks contracts might need a lawyer to look over them… that’s a hell of a loophole! And then we are treated to three shots of the rider going down roads… with piss poor matte paintings and a good old endless fight voice over. To be capped off with a ridiculous shot of nic cage and his hairpiece raising an eyebrow and bursting into Ghost Rider flames…. What does this eyebrow say? It says… did I do this? Really?

This film is like a comic book from Image in the 90’s… its occasionally pretty, has some cool ideas scattered throughout. It is running late. (it was due to be released a year ago) it has amazing splash pages scattered randomly though it. Yet its premise is confused; a mish mash of a lot of ideas, and it loses the plot half way through and tries to compensate with looking pretty and tits. I know it’s a movie about a guy with a flaming skull for a head…. But jesus… try harder. I wish I could have seen the version that norrington and Goyer had planned… darker, more horror driven. What bright spark decided that flamey skull man was a PG film anyway?

Ghost Rider could be the start of a very very slipper slope for marvel films…. I hope that spiderman manages to stick fast and make sure the fall doesn’t go too far.

One and a half flamey skulls (the old rider fucked off half way through remember)