When he was a teenager, motorcycle daredevil Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage) made a deal with Mephistopheles (Peter Fonda): in order to save his father’s life, Johnny agreed to become the Ghost Rider, a demonic force who transports the souls of the Devil’s minions to the underworld. But the deal didn’t work out quite the way Blaze expected, and the Devil has returned for payment; seems that Blackheart (Wes Bentley), the Devil’s son, has hatched a plan to secure thousands of his father’s conscripted souls for his own nefarious purposes, and the Devil needs Johnny’s help in stopping him. Johnny reluctantly agrees, but only to protect Roxanne Simpson (Eva Mendes), his childhood sweetheart. Johnny finds help in the form of the Caretaker (Sam Elliott), a mysterious man who is quite familiar with the machinations of the rulers of Hell, and they set out to send Blackheart back to his father’s realm.

CRITIQUE

I don’t consider myself a hater of writer-director Mark Steven Johnson’s Daredevil. I found it to be watchable but misguided (Elektra shouldn’t have been included), and have refused to buy into the notion that Johnson committed a crime to rival the one Akiva Goldsman and Joel Schumacher had perpetrated with Batman & Robin. That being said, I was more than a little taken aback when it was announced Johnson would be bringing Ghost Rider--a character whose big screen adventure had been stuck in development hell for the better part of a decade--to theaters; after all, this is the man who took John Irving’s dark and somber A Prayer for Owen Meany and turned it into the syrupy sweet Simon Birch. Having now seen the results, I kind of wish this project had remained stuck on the launch pad. This movie is a crime to rival Batman & Robin, and joins that movie, Catwoman, and Howard the Duck as the nadir of comics-to-films adaptations.

Ghost Rider suffers from two serious flaws: it’s dumb and it’s boring. The first I can live with, because dumb movies can be fun. It’s the second that gets to me. I think being boring is one of the worst mistakes a film can make, and Ghost Rider is one of the most boring movies I’ve seen in a long time. Exactly how a movie about a guy who turns into a flaming skeleton and tools around on a badass chopper is beyond me, but damn if Johnson doesn’t make it so. Get this--it takes twenty minutes for Johnny to make his deal with Satan, and another twenty-five before he makes his first transformation into the title character. That’s a deadly mistake in a film such as this.

Sure, it took Superman almost an hour to appear in the 1978 film, but there’s a dichotomy to that character that takes time to establish, and the film did so in a very fine manner. And when Superman finally did take flight, what followed was a series of grand adventures that’s rarely been rivaled. But what you get for a first act here is twenty minutes of the young Johnny moping about, then twenty-five of Cage being alternately mopey and hammy. And when the action finally does kick in, the movie still manages to be boring, presenting the Rider’s adventures in a turgid, lifeless, rote manner, and it also somehow manages to get even dumber, presenting a story that’s both inane and incomprehensible.

Johnson’s script is a mess. The story doesn’t make it clear exactly what Blackheart is up to, nor is it explained why Mephistopheles can’t stop his son on his own. The scene in which Blaze gains control of his powers is lame beyond belief. The self-conscious comic relief is painfully unfunny (the gag with the neon sign at the police station made me embarrassed to even be watching the movie). The relationship between Johnny and Roxanne plays as if it were written by a thirteen-year-old (why the hell does she bring a Magic 8-Ball to dinner?). Why is it that the knife wound Ghost Rider receives shows up on Johnny (a wound that disappears a scene later, by the way), yet the thousand rounds of automatic gunfire the cops pump into the Rider don’t affect Johnny in any way? Why doesn’t the young Johnny give even a moment’s thought to the deal he makes with the Devil? Speaking of the Devil, if he has so much power, why doesn’t he do something about his hairline? Finally, why does the Rider’s bike even have a license plate?

The acting doesn’t help much. Cage seems to think he’s in a sequel to Con Air, as his take on Johnny Blaze is awfully reminiscent of the Elvis-esque Cameron Poe (interpret that however you like). Mendes (who is ten years younger than Cage and looks it) is simply awful. She comes across as a teenage girl trying to act like a woman in her thirties. It’s obvious Bentley was just waiting for his check to clear; he spends the entire movie vacillating between going over the top and sleepwalking. Fonda is okay, although he’s not really given much to do. The only real bright spots are Elliott and Donal Logue, who plays the manager of Johnny’s crew. I don’t think Elliott is capable of giving a bad performance, and he somehow manages to make his material and dialogue work (and if you’ve seen the movie, you already know what a truly amazing feat this is); following his final scene I couldn’t help but wish the Caretaker had been the main character. I’ve been a fan of Logue’s work since The Tao of Steve, and he’s his patented effortlessly funny self here; too bad Johnson wasn’t smart enough to prevent him from virtually disappearing from the story halfway in.

Rumblings about a sequel to this movie have already surfaced. If it does come to be, I hope something similar to what went down with the Hulk’s second theatrical adventure comes to pass: scrap the cast and filmmakers, and for all intents and purposes pretend the first movie doesn’t exist and start anew. And this time around find a writer, director, and lead actor who actually understand the character. I can remember when Stephen Norrington and David Goyer (hot off their success with Blade) were working on bringing the Rider to the screen (Goyer was paid off with a producing credit here), and were reportedly talking to Johnny Depp about playing the title role. Can you imagine what that would have been like? I can, and in my mind it sure as hell isn’t anywhere near as awful as what we did get.

THE VIDEO

The only flaw I noticed in the 2.40:1/1080p video is a bit of digital noise in two scenes (it’s most noticeable in the horizon during Johnny’s second encounter with Mephistopheles). Other than that, though, this is one amazing, eye-popping transfer. Johnson and cinematographer Russell Boyd (the Oscar-winning DP of Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World) intentionally contrast deep blacks with bright, almost day-glo colors, a look that’s extremely well represented here. All of the blacks are incredibly deep, and all of the bright colors are incredibly vivid. Depth and detail are very impressive, even in the darkest scenes.

THE AUDIO

Sony has once again included two lossless audio tracks--PCM and Dolby TrueHD 5.1 options--and once again it’s a wash as to which is better. I noticed no discernible difference between the two, although the PCM track does play slightly louder. The sound design here is very aggressive, with near constant surround and deep bass action; the soundstage is expansive and immersive. Dialogue is always clear and intelligible. Any way you stack it, these are reference quality, demo-worthy tracks. A French Dolby Digital 5.1 track is also included, as are English, Chinese, French, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, and Thai subtitles.

THE EXTRAS

Sony is also releasing this movie on a two-disc standard def set, which features more bonus material than this Blu-ray version. What you’ll find there that you won’t here are an animatics featurette and a documentary covering Ghost Rider’s various comics incarnations (I was really looking forward to the latter). Why they weren’t included here is unclear, although I imagine that the inclusion of two lossless audio tracks ate up quite a bit of disc space. Here’s a look at what you do get:

First up is an audio commentary with writer/director Mark Steven Johnson and visual effects supervisor Kevin Mack. This is a pretty good chat (far better than the movie itself), especially when Johnson rails against critics who have disparaged his two comics-to-film flicks (no comment), complains about the test screening process, and admits that the footage added to this extended cut is completely unnecessary (at least he’s honest).

The audio commentary with producer Gary Foster is redundant and ultimately unnecessary, as he covers pretty much everything Johnson and Mack do in their commentary.

The only other extra, the Making of Ghost Rider documentary, is broken up into three featurettes and presented in 1080p video:

Spirit of Vengeance (28 minutes) covers the origins of the movie and then ventures into production.

Spirit of Adventure (29 minutes) continues the behind-the-scenes look at the production.  

Spirit of Execution (23 minutes) covers the visual effects work.

I found the last the most interesting, as the first two are rather unfocused and contain too much back-slapping and uninteresting filler (can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m not interested in hearing Foster discuss what Mendes had on her iPod during filming).

FINAL THOUGHTS

I can’t believe I’m doing this, but against my better judgment I say give this one a rent. Choose to sit through it all and you’ll get a couple of good performances and some unintentional laughs. Skip around and you’ll find bits that will help justify all of the money you’ve spent on next-gen gear (I can’t say I’m glad I saw this movie, but I am glad I have to disc to use as eye and ear candy). But if you choose to avoid it altogether, I don’t think anyone will hold your decision against you.