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Film: Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance
Year: 2011
Director: Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor
Writer: Scott M. Gimple, Seth Hoffman and David S. Goyer
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Ciarán Hinds and Idris Elba
Review:
This film begins with a man riding his motorcycle into a monastery of some kind; the man is played by Idris Elba. This monastery isn’t like any I’ve seen as it has its own armed guards. He comes in and pleads with the head of the sect trying to tell him to let him take the kid they are protecting, because he believes he isn’t safe there. They tell him he is though.
Men show up and overpower them. The kid, played by Fergus Riordan, and his mother, played by Violante Placido, escapes while being chased by Elba who is pleading with them to let him help them. The man that leads the attack is played by Johnny Whitworth, we learn that he was dating Placido. He is a bad man who deals drugs, guns and is a mercenary and he is hired to bring this kid to a man, played by Ciarán Hinds, who is really the devil.
We then get some back-story about the title character since we last saw him, played by Nicolas Cage. We learn that he can’t control becoming the Ghost Rider and he can’t help to steal the souls of those who have done bad things, no matter how bad. Elba seeks him out and tells Cage that he needs to find this boy; if he does Elba can cure his curse.
Cage does find them and becomes the Ghost Rider. He fails in getting the boy and is taken down. They can’t stop him a second time around though. Will Cage be able to keep the boy safe before the day of the prophecy? Can he trust anyone? Can he keep the Rider in check before he kills the boy or his mother?
I would say I was disappointed by this film and I had really low expectations. I like Cage as an actor, but he does some really bad movies and does some really bad acting sometimes. This is a case of both of them. When he is fighting to keep from becoming the Rider, he overacts and it is just horrible, highly unbelievable.
The story itself isn’t all the bad, but the random scenes that it flashes to don’t make sense and the film just got to be kind of annoying. The Rider itself was an improvement in this film. The monster that Whitmore becomes is actually really good too. I like that he can kill things by making them decay.
I would only watch this one if you like Marvel comics, were really into Ghost Rider or you liked the first film. If not, I would avoid this one, because it isn’t very good. There is very little there to try to redeem itself which is sad by all the talent that there is in this film.
My Rating: 5 out of 10