Satan/Roarke is going to leave his old, beat up body and possess his son’s youthful one, therefore combining the two main versions of how the Antichrist will be created. The story, in a nutshell, is that the devil is after a young boy by the name of Danny in order to put his essence into. This film makes it clear that Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage)willingly signed the contract with the Devil (now named Roarke and played by Ciarán Hinds instead of being tricked into signing by Peter Fonda’s Mephistopheles) and Blaze wants the curse removed, a change from the last film’s ending, where Blaze rejected Mephistopheles’ offer of removing the curse in order to use the power for good. But this new film isn’t any good.Īnd, yes, I said this new film and not this sequel, because this a soft reboot of the franchise. But that isn’t much of a complement, because I could make a better Ghost Rider film than the first one using action figures and empty cereal boxes. I’ve had a while to think this this film, more than it really deserves, and I have decided that the film is better than the first film. But for that to happen Nicolas Cage will have to let the project fall through his hammy hands. These moments feel like they were meant for audiences watching them with 3D glasses, but seeing them in standard 2D on HBO Max makes them feel almost surreal.I am convinced that there could eventually be a great movie made out of the Ghost Rider character. Some of these moments are transformational, as when mercenary Ray Carrigan (Johnny Whitworth) transforms into Blackout, and others are more comedic, such as Ghost Rider urinating as if wielding a flamethrower. During key moments in Spirit of Vengeance, the screen goes completely black, save for a single character. Now that the 3D craze has mostly passed, parts of this movie look incredibly strange in hindsight. Spirit of Vengeance is one of those movies. These quickly became the realm of cliché, with movie after movie featuring scenes in which objects are thrown directly at the camera. Why must Johnny Blaze save Danny? It’s unclear, but Mephistopheles (Ciarán Hinds), the demon who alternately goes by Roarke, clearly wants the boy.Ī few years before Spirit of Vengeance arrived in 2009, James Cameron’s Avatar triggered an avalanche of movies with 3D elements. Unfortunately, Moreau only tracks down Johnny Blaze to help him save Danny Ketch (Fergus Riordan), a young boy who has only his mother Nadya (Violante Placido) to protect him from demonic forces. When the two of them are on-screen, their oddball chemistry is undeniable. This is a movie featuring Nicolas Cage as Johnny Blaze and Idris Elba as an alcoholic warrior monk named Moreau, who for some reason has a bizarre French accent. There’s a good movie buried within Spirit of Vengeance. Neveldine and Taylor, who had made their name with the hyperactive Crank series, similarly appeared a perfect fit for the franchise, if you could envision Ghost Rider movies as rude, crude, and totally over-the-top.Īnd, in part, the directors delivered a sequel that lived up to that promise. The Oscar-winning actor’s overriding weirdness seemed a natural fit for the character, and the first Ghost Rider movie, released in 2007, was such a commercial hit that a sequel was a no-brainer. However, after the seismic culture shift brought about by 9/11, the archetype of the antihero seemed out of step with the times, and Marvel struggled to find an audience for him.Įnter Nicolas Cage. Once a carefree motorcycle stuntman, Johnny Blaze entered into a Faustian bargain with Mephisto, the devil himself, becoming a demonic entity who fed on the souls of the wicked.Ī spirit of vengeance by night, complete with a flaming skull for a head, Ghost Rider fit the rebellious spirit of Marvel in the ‘70s, an era that popularized other gritty, tormented characters like Luke Cage and Wolverine. Mixing elements of Evel Knievel, Elvis Presley, and an earlier comic book character with the same name, Ghost Rider emerged as a tormented daredevil. Ghost Rider first emerged as a Marvel character in 1972. Nicolas Cage and Idris Elba star in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.
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