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Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Movie Review: Ghost Rider


When I first saw the trailer of Ghost Rider, I was not keen on the movie.
What can be so watchable about it?
What can a skullhead comic-book character bring to a film?
The special effects did not look great anyway.
These were thoughts that came to mind.
But before I was totally turned off by the trailer, a name came up, and it was Nicolas Cage.

Nicolas Cage was totally stifled in his last film, World Trade Center, but that was only because it was World Trade Center, based on a real story and tragedy.
There were no Nicholas Cage-ness then, but here in Ghost Rider, his Cage-ness is back.

Do you believe in second chances? Hell yes!

I agreed with Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage), son of a stunt biker who made a deal with the devil to cure his father from cancer by selling his soul.

But can you really trust the devil?

Years later after losing his family and the love of his life, Blaze is losing his mind.
He had become famous for his death defying bike stunts and cheated death so many times that his garage is stacked full of crashed bikes.

On his father’s death anniversary he will attempt an outrageous bike leap over a row of buses that stretches over the length of a football field.
There was nothing that his good friend and crew can talk him out of it.

You cannot live in fear. That is his ordeal.

On the day of his jump, the love of his life reappeared.
But so has the devil.

Blaze is now needed by the devil to trace and retrieve a contract made by a thousand souls.
There was legend that a Ghost Rider had ran away with it fearing its evil, had it gone into the wrong hands.

Blaze, himself turned into a Ghost Rider by night, a flaming skullhead, chain wielding, leather clad demon that rides a flaming bike.

This movie is adapted from Marvel comics.
And in comics there are heroes and villains.
Ghost Rider though was empowered by the devil has a conscience.
He may have lost his soul but he has the bigger spirit.
And his superpower enables him to burn the souls of those that are guilty of causing harm to the innocents.

The movie is entertaining. There were numerous funny dialogues and lines that only someone as charming an actor as Cage can carry off.

The CGI was not terrific but they did enough for the film to keep its fantasy and comic like background. The part where Blaze and his bike transform into Ghost Rider is sweet.
Rock and roll! It is the biker’s dream.

Hero fighting villains, inspirational dialogues and an interesting cast the likes of Eva Mendes (2 fast 2 furious, Hitch), Wes Bentley (American Beauty), Sam Elliot (Hulk), Donal Logue (Blade) and Peter Fonda (The Limey, Easy Rider), Ghost Rider is a moviegoer’s must watch for stress free entertainment with a dash of moral.

I must also mention how well director Mark Steven Johnson thought out the sequences in the film. To bring a comic book to live on screen is by no means an easy feat.
His previous effort in Daredevil must have served this comic-book fan well.
For when I do not think Daredevil was good, Ghost Rider certainly was.

Second chances sound good to me.

Movie link: http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/ghostrider/

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