Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself

Yeesh.

It's faint praise to say it's better than the first film. But I'm not even sure if I'd say it is.

Giving Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor this franchise is an interesting decision. They've made some crap but I have a big soft spot for the insanity they bottled in those Crank films. They have a wild dynamic style to their shooting and editing. And if there's one guy who's gonna go along with that insanity it's Nicolas Cage.

Unfortunately saddled with a PG-13 rating does them no favours. And their shooting style, whilst energetic, does not translate to 3D at all. The post conversion would have been a pain and a lot of the time it doesn't look too good either. If you absolutely have to see it, try and find a 2D session.

Nicolas Cage gives another wildly out there performance, almost as if he's parodying himself. But it is so very funny. Neveldine and Taylor's sense of humour slips through every now and then too. I don't know why Ciarán Hinds is in this but he's probably the best thing in the film. And that monk was totally Christopher Lambert...

There are some neat little graphic animation sequences interspersed though the film delivering the big mythological exposition. Why not. Even more stylistic are the one of one fights that are often done by jumping into a black void with a lot of cg slow mo close ups. It's kinda neat though. A lot of the editing was neat.

But none of this can make up for the story and the fact that nothing in the film seems to have any resonance or consequence. This is just some colourful noise. It doesn't all add up to a whole and in the end is very unsatisfying.