Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance review

Before I begin, let me tell you about myself.  I ten to be a terrible judge went it comes to movies.  I don't watch movies too often, and when I do, I try to enjoy them as much as possible, good or bad (I'm one of the few people who actually likes Spider-man 3).  So when a movie comes around that I can tell is bad, you are doing something WRONG... not Spirit of Vengeance, that movie is nothing but awesome, but before I get to that, I need to talk about the first Ghost Rider.  What do I think of it?  It sucks.

The production was it's first red flag for me.  It just felt cheap, like it was made for TV but got some extra money to give it a theatrical release.  Despite it's 110 million dollar budget, everything just felt low budget, the effects especially.  Nick Cage was the only person I was interested in and everyone else just seemed there and not really important or interested in being in the movie.  The villains were non treating.  They were all pretty much beat in one move and added nothing to the movie except lame fight scenes.  On top of that, the movie just felt clean, like if a few scenes were edited here and there, it would of been a PG rating.  And when your hero has a FLAMING SKULL for a head and he's battling the son of the DEVIL, that shouldn't happen.

Why Dormammu is in MvC3 instead of Blackheart

There are some positives.  I liked Nick Cage in the movie, and it followed Ghost Rider's origin story from the comics to a tee, but everything else was a mess.  Like I said, when I can tell that a movie is really bad, there's something wrong here, and I'm one of the few people who liked Ang Lee's Hulk.  That should say something.

So five years later almost to the day (I looked it up, the first one come out on February 16, this one came out on the 17th) what could Marvel possibly give us?  Nothing short of Ghost Rider eating a clip of bullets, and puking it out in flames on someones face level of awesome.  I know it came out a week ago so I'm a little late to the party, but screw it, I'm writing the review anyway.

The first thing I noticed about this movie right from the get go was the feel of it.  It was darker, dirtier, grittier.  It was a total tone shift from the first.  When Ghost Rider appears on scene for the first time, you can feel the bad guys crapping there pants... okay, maybe you don't want feel that, but that's not the point.  Were as the first Ghost Rider was tame, SoV's Rider shows no mercy, slicing lackies in half left and right and taking no prisoners.  He felt like an anti-hero, like he was going to turn the bad guys into ash the moment he got his hands on them, literally.  SoV makes the first one look like the guy your parents would want your sister to marry by comparison.

Do you see a difference?

The overall cast is okay.  No one does anything that blew me away in terms of a performance, but Nicolas Cage is good, Ciaran Hinds is a decent Mephisto (He's called Roarke in the movie), Johnny Whitworth makes a good secondary villain, Violante Placido and Fergus Riordan are a good Mother/Son pair and Idris Elda, while having a smaller role, I ended up liking a lot with him and Nick as my favorites in the film.  Like I said, nothing great but they aren't bad ether... not as bad as Eva Mendes anyway.

The movie is around 90 minutes, and it makes very minute count.  It's a fast paced movie but I never got confused between scenes and Neveldine and Taylor do a good job making sure edits didn't fly by too fast and they spaced out action scenes with story pretty well despite a short run time.  Even though the action wasn't always there, with about, I'd say, three big ones, they make them count and were great watches.  The rock quarry scene in-particular was a highlight of the movie for me, with Cage riding a giant digger (I have no clue what it's actually called) and setting it a blaze.  The characters were developed enough to like and care about them by stories end.  As a whole there was a nice balance between action and story.

So, is there any thing wrong with the movie?  Well, it completely ignores the first movie, so continuity is out the window.  That's not a big deal for me, cause I liked this movie unlike the first one.  It doesn't follow the comics all that much, so if your a big fan of the comics that might bother you.  The villains aren't that great and mostly get there butts handed to them through out the movie.  They're still a step up from the villains in the first one.  There was one scene were it was just Cage screaming in front of the camera while he was turning into the Rider that was kinda annoying.

Said scene

I guess the real question is whether or not you liked the first movie.  I keep going back to that because I really didn't like the first one at all and SoV just about out does it in every way.  This movie was what the first one should have been.  Everything is in this is better.  The action, better.  The effects, better.  I completely forgot to mention some of the funnier parts in it.  Nicolas Cage is great in this.  I for one was glad to pay five bucks for my ticket and it was a fun ride.  I never felt bored watching the movie and at the end of the day that's what counts.  I was entertained from beginning to end and I'm glad I saw it.

I should also mention the 3D.  I didn't go see a 3D showing.  I don't like 3D, I think it's gimmicky, blah, blah, blah, moving on.

If you hated the first one like me, this one might make you happy.  If you haven't seen the first one, go see this anyway, it's awesome.  It may not be the best film you'll see all year, but you'll be entertained and to me that's all that matters.  I give it a B, go see it, enjoy.  I hope you found this informative, see ya later.

This is what I think of your 14% Rotten Tomatoes!