MOVIE: Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

STARRING: Nicolas Cage, Violante Placido, Ciarán Hinds, Idris Elba, Johnny Whitworth

RELEASE DATE: February 17th, 2012

WHERE TO WATCH: VOD (Hulu, Amazon Prime, Vudu, Apple TV)

By Justin Pomerville (2 Broke Geeks)

Because Ghost Rider made about $230 million at the box offices, the studio decided to go ahead and make a sequel, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. If you remember from last week’s article, I was not a fan of the first one. Would the sequel surpass the it and Johnny Blaze be more of a household name that can carry an ongoing franchise? I’ll answer that for you, not even close. This is the first time I have watched this film. I remember when the trailer came out, the biggest selling point was it would be darker, but also humorous. I remember one scene in particular, Ghost Rider was urinating fire on the side of the road. From there, I knew what I should expect from this mess.

The plot is Johnny Blaze hiding out in Europe, struggling with controlling the Ghost Rider. A priest named Moreau (played by Idris Elba) finds Johnny and makes a deal with him. If Johnny can rescue a boy named Danny (played by Fergus Riodran) from Mephisto (played by Ciarán Hinds), he will free Blaze from the Ghost Rider.

I talked about how in the first film, Ghost Rider felt like there was very little plot for a film that was a little over 2 hours. This film was an hour and a half long and still felt like not much happened. The big difference was that they filled the movie with a lot of action; fight scenes, car chases, and explosions. However, the special effects were kind of choppy and was overused. They made almost everything feel like a big action sequence, even scenes like injecting a needle in someone’s arm or simply walking in a dramatic fashion.

The story is odd too. By the end of the first film, Johnny is starting to learn how to control Ghost Rider. Yet in this film, he still acts as if he has no clue how it works. They had a flashback moment of young Johnny making the deal with Mephisto.Instead of using the same scene from the first film, they made a completely different scene with different props. Due to replacing the actor who portrayed Mephisto, they re-did the scene. This made it feel more like a soft reboot versus a sequel.

The only positive thing I can say about this film is that I actually like the design of Ghost Rider, but that doesn’t save this film. Much like the urinating scene, this film goes right down the toilet and is going in the lower end of the “Hot Mess” section of the Nic Gauge.