Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

2011 action movie

Rating: 25/20

Plot: The titular guy with the flaming skull has to fight the devil in order to save not only a boy's life but the entire world. Bring it on!

This whole movie feels like the cover of a heavy metal album that has come to live for the purpose of eating your stinking soul. That's especially true of flaming motorcycle cam scenes where Nic Cage's face starts contorting and getting all Ghost-Ridery. It's pretty badass. This sequel or reboot or whatever it is is a lot better than the first movie although that honestly doesn't say a lot. No, it's not a true 25/20, but there's a scene where the Ghost Rider pisses fire. And oh my God that might be the best thing that I've ever seen--Cage standing on the back of a moving truck demonstrating with some of his own flaming urine sound effects is magical all by itself, but when it changed to the Ghost Rider pissing fire, looking back at the audience, definitely breaking that fourth wall, and nodding his skull head? Holy hell, that's something to behold! It made me wonder if there was something I could buy in a toy store--similar to Hulk hands that make smashing noises or a Captain America shield--that would allow children to urinate flames. I'm a little confused about Ghost Rider's superpowers actually. Apparently, he can eat bullets, spin around while perpendicular about five feet in the air, survive missiles, turn all vehicles he drives into fire vehicles, and make people explode with a chain. And, of course, he can piss fire. The general tone of this movie feels different than it did with that first movie, but I'm probably not remembering it very well. There's almost non-stop action, right from the get-go with some crazy shaky-cam monastery kidnapping action and a car chase scene, but this also feels a lot more tongue-in-cheek. There's a humor I either don't remember or was too distracted to see. Nicolas Cage doesn't laugh at a monkey in this movie though. Cage's performance adds to his legendary list of unhinged credits. There's a scene where the Ghost Rider does a cute little dance while a nondescript bad guy says "Get some" which was nice, but the best scene is where he really loses his shit, makes himself twitch like no other actor is capable of doing, laughs like no other actor can laugh, and says "Scratching at the door, scratching at the door!" in this unearthly falsetto. He also threatens to eat somebody's stinking soul. He also narrates a bit (of course, because he's Nicolas Cage), reminds me of The Wicker Man remake with a line about bees, and gets a terrific line that I think might have been lifted from an original draft of Die Hard--"Merry Christmas, you assholes!" That line had to be improvised. And Nicolas Cage has to be on drugs. I also liked the too-brief performance of a guy playing a Swedish hippie who says, "Dude, what happened?" There are lots of "dudes" in this movie actually. And enough references to Twinkies to make me wonder if Hostess had some kind of deal. I can't imagine a urinating Ghost Rider being on a box of Twinkies next to the Twinkie cowboy with his lasso. Despite all the moments in this movie with a raw sublimity that will likely make you either spew blood or ejaculate right in your pants, this movie is a whole lot of dumb. When the devil gives the main bad guy the "power of decay," it apparently also involves giving him bad blond hair for some reason, and he succeeds in looking stupid rather than menacing. A big motorcycle stunt has either the dumbest or greatest musical selection backing it--a guitar-driven song with the lyrics "I got a velvet itch, I got a velvet itch, I got a velvet itch in my jeans." There's the randomly jerking camera, a trick I don't normally like in action movies and that here seems even more irritating. There's an unnecessary dig at Jerry Springer, and a subtitle that read "All chanting in demonic language." And a climactic fight scene on top of moving vehicles was about the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen, and I had just seen a leather-clad flaming-skulled guy urinating fire about an hour before. I did laugh at a whispered "Roadkill" that punctuated that fight though. I did appreciate a very obvious Wilhelm scream though. This movie is far from great, but at least it's a consistently entertaining bad movie.