The Dukes See a Movie (and immediately regret it): Ghost Rider: The Spirit of Vengeance

Even the motorcycle was ashamed enough of this movie to try and commit suicide by fire. Can't say I blame it.

This movie was bad and I feel a little ashamed for having seen it, and coming from me that is something. To try and save some face I am going to try and explain how this happened(sadly I really think this won't help my cause at all, but rather will weaken it substantially).

My friends and I at times can be rather nerdy. We enjoy a lot of things that are placed solidly on the nerd side of the nerd scale(it is a real scale I promise), but we had never done the one thing that would cement our nerdness(and singleness). That thing is Dungeons and Dragons. That's right we decided to take the plunge and engage in one night of D&D just so we could say we did, and to justify my claim that yes we could stoop even lower. As it would happen Ricky has a coworker who has engaged in this game for years and he deigned to guide us through the process.

So after hours of putting together a character sheet and watching random people dunk(yay for Jeremy Evans) we were fairly brain dead. While in this state we decided it would be a good plan to see a movie. We had a couple of options in mind but sadly it was too late for our good picks and all that remained was Ghost Rider. We could have stopped right there and watched a movie at home but we went ahead and went to the theater.

I could spend some time telling you about the plot and such but I don't want to force my pain on you so I decided I would just tell you about five points that made this movie ridiculous.

ONE

The devil in this movie was the worst. For some reason the creator of this show decided that he should sound like Droopy Dog. I mean who finds that the least bit scary or devil-y? It was one thing that I could not get over at all. I swear I spent half the movie saying "But I don't want to" or "going up sir?" in my best Droopy voice.

This man has come for your soul...or maybe just a pillow

TWO

 Having a boy as a main character is a risky endeavor. In some cases they annoy you so much that you will come to loathe anything that is associated with them(see: Anakin from Episode 1 and that boy from Real Steel). In other shows they can add a much needed touch of innocence and child-like wonder. These latter kids are great(see: Son of Rambow and Finding Neverland). The kid in this movie didn't add wonder so that only left one option for this kid. 


The part that got to me was how the ghost rider and this kid were supposed to have developed this bond after about 20 minutes of being together. GR has a chance to get rid of the demon inside of him(which he has been trying to do for decades) and the boy gets all pissy and won't talk to him because of it.  First off why would he want to be friends with a man possessed by a demon? Second this demon just tried to kill your mother. Third this demon man is 48. He should really be looking for friends his own age.

I guess my problem might just stem from the fact that I hate kids(except my nieces), but I think in this case I might be justified.  


THREE

I like a good freak out scene as much as the next man but this movie took it to a place that it never should have gone.

This is that place.

Just imagine 45 minutes of this. I may be off on the amount of time it actually took but it felt like a few minutes longer than forever. "Oh no the demon in me wants out! I can't let that happen even though watching my face randomly distort will be nightmare fodder for anyone that sees this." That is the dialogue I added to the scene to spice it up a bit.


FOUR

A lot of these things I probably could have handled if the action scenes had made up for them but as you can guess they did not. For some reason they decided to get artistic in the action scenes. In some cases this works but pretty much only with quality directors which this movie did not appear to have. 

When it came time for a cool fight the director decided that we didn't want any background so it became a plain white screen or randomly dark. Also during the fighting the camera was about 1-2 seconds behind the action so it felt like we were missing what was actually going on. It made me sad inside (somebody hold me).

FIVE 

This one I am calling Ricky's choice. I texted him and asked what he felt were the worst things about this movie. He gave me a pretty awesome list that I think I am just going to place in here word for word.

Me: I have started my Ghost Rider review. What bad point do you want me to put in?

Ricky: About the movie? Good hell how do you choose? The knee swaying scene? The scene where Nicolas Cage's face went all crazy? (see picture above) How about the part where he pissed fire? Or when he vomited bullets? What about the ending where he simply sent the devil back to hell where he will undoubtedly "escape" (cuz it's not like he's been given dominion over the earth or anything) and then he just let the crazy angel demon out. Don't worry kids Ghost Rider is no longer dangerous because his flames are blue. Let him caress your cheek with his flaming skeleton hand.  

I don't know why I added this but I felt the article needed a photo of Ricky.

I really liked that response since you can feel his anger at what we went through. Hopefully our words today can help you all avoid another one of our mistakes. In the end all I can really say about this movie is "hey at least it was better than Skyline".

Rating: 1.5 stars