Lies, Damn Lies

ghost rider

Is a mind boggingly awful mess. See, it had got three stars in the usually fairly reliable Empire magazine, so while I was hardly expecting a masterpiece, I was ready to have some mindless fun.

The only problem is, when a film gets as ridiculous as Ghost Rider it is somewhat difficult to keep your brain switched off. The soundtrack is very poor, ridiculously over dramatic at dramatic points, and generally disconcerting enough to throw you out of the action. I'd like to talk about how awful the acting is, but, to be fair, the lines are bad enough that it would take Ian McKellen to deliver them (Ian McKellen can deliver pretty much any line in the universe. Genuine fact.)

Nicholas Cage is probably the best thing in this movie, a setence I honestly never thought I'd write. Many have written about his over-acting in scenes where he changes to the ghost rider, but to be honest thats not unusual, and at least theres some bloody energy there. Sadly once he becomes the ghost rider we pretty much lose Cage and get an (admittedly cool looking) cgi creation. The fights are probably this films greatest let down- generally when one sees a super hero movie one expects some impressive fight scenes. Instead we discover that the ghost rider is just ridiculously over powered- he disposes most of the bad guys within 5 seconds, with very, very, little fighting, although I suppose one could argue that a skeleton could not engage in a large range of martial arts......

The plot goes from ludicrous to insane as the story progresses, and the acting just gets ridiculous until you become completely detached from the story and pray for the damn thing to end (it clocks in at just under 2 hours for some reason.....) Do not see this film....

posted by Mr K @ 8:32 pm