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Feb 23, 201260This doesn't lack for crazy charm, particularly when Nicolas Cage (in his go-for-broke Bad Lieutenant mode) and Ciaran Hinds (playing the devil) try to out-weird each other with broad, even cartoonish performances.
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60The film, though, has some redeeming qualities, including the presence of Idris Elba as the obligatory good guy, who encourages Johnny to get Danny into the protective custody of a religious order.
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50Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance offers Cage plenty of opportunities to tap his inner circus geek, to twitch, cackle and flail without shame, going full tilt batwing crazy. Not since he danced in a pagan bear suit in The Wicker Man has Cage appeared this unconcerned about what the audience will think.
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Feb 17, 201250The smugness of the film grows wearying long before the end. Just because the people on and behind the camera are willing to acknowledge what we're watching is ridiculous crap doesn't really change the fact that, well, it is.
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Feb 17, 201250Spirit of Vengeance is so focused and, as a result, so impoverished that you actually feel bad for Cage. The actor tries to bring the weird (though at this point one wonders if he can even do anything else) but the film more often than not leaves him high and dry, saddling him with standard-issue action hero lines and boilerplate action set-pieces.
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50Cage-ophiles will find some delectable freakouts in Blaze's transformation - or near transformation - scenes. Otherwise, the committee-penned script combines yokel-friendly haw-haw irreverence (non-sequitur cutaways to the Rider pissing in a flamethrower pattern) and sweaty monologues about "controlling the Rider" (the character is basically a mean drunk's superhero).
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Feb 17, 201250So it's a half-certainty, half-shock that Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is both good and bad, a sequel that's hungry for thrills but bereft of the cohesiveness - and budget - to be a full meal.
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Feb 20, 201240The picture is still much too rickety, slapdash and surprisingly dull to qualify as a good barrel-bottom pleasure.
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40With his (Cage) over-the-top delivery and operatically intense facial expressions, there's no way anyone could accuse him of phoning this one in.
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40Alas, unlike the duo's Crank films - also about a hero on the verge of explosion - Spirit of Vengeance lacks a solid gimmick to unify their transgressive gambits.
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Feb 17, 201240The first "Ghost Rider" film, directed by Mark Steven Johnson, was sort of a fizzy goof, the kind of movie where you don't expect much and then think, "Hey, that was actually kind of fun." Spirit of Vengeance, though, is undone by increased expectations, as promising more only makes it feel they are somehow delivering less.
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Feb 17, 201240A water-treading sequel offering just enough kooky color to keep less-discerning funnybook fans occupied, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance nudges its obscure hero's mythology forward a bit without seeming to care much how it gets there.
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40Like "Ghost Rider: Low Voltage," this is a surprisingly underpowered excursion into Marvel's mad world by Neveldine and Taylor. More purgatory than hellfire.
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33The charismatic Idris Elba debuts in a key role as an alcoholic priest who recruits Cage's unique services. Yet instead of elevating the franchise, Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance ends up squandering even more potential.
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33Most of the movie's action-horror set pieces play like lame Gwar music video outtakes, and Cage's signature mix of irony and off-the-rails mugging only works when you can see the actor's face. In Ghost Rider form, his character is just a skeletal automaton with neither a tongue nor a cheek to put it in.
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30This time out, the action is in 3-D, which amounts to a few shots of flaming motorcycle parts comin' at ya, but little else.
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25For acting to be this bad in movie not directed by Michael Bay or George Lucas, it has to be intentional.
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25The only part of this movie anyone's ever going to remember is the pair of scenes in which Ghost Rider pees flame.
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12To question where things went wrong feels somehow strange, as the project seems to have been ill-conceived from the very start.
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0One look at the dreadful mess that is Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance will turn your whisper into a primal Cage scream: MAKE THIS MOVIE STOP!