GHOST RIDER

Johnny Blaze is a teenager who performs stunts at the circus with his father who is sick with cancer. One day, Mephistopheles himself appears to Johnny and offers him a deal: his soul in exchange for his father's healing. Johnny, convinced it's a joke, accepts; the next day, the tumor growing in his father's lungs suddenly disappears, but the man dies anyway as a result of an accident. Deceived by Mephistopheles, Johnny has now become a Ghost Rider, that is, a bounty hunter in the service of the devil. Years pass, Johnny has become the most famous stuntman in America and performs in his own show. After setting aside the story of the Ghost Rider for years, Mephistopheles reappears to Johnny and assigns him a mission: he will have to seek out and defeat Blackheart and his gang of demons, intent on unleashing Hell on Earth after coming into possession of a parchment with supernatural powers. It's too easy to trash a movie like "Ghost Rider": to disparage it for narrative inconsistencies and condemn it for excessive boorish sensationalism, it's a bit like shooting the red cross! "Ghost Rider" should only be taken for what it is, that is, a costly toy that makes pure entertainment its battle flag. Born in the early 70s for Marvel, "Ghost Rider" is a comic with alternating fortune (known in Italy simply as "Ghost") that certainly did not make narrative material and the psychological depth of the characters its strong point; therefore, it was easy to draw from this material a movie that reflected the complacent obtuseness of action movies full of explosions and special effects that Hollywood has accustomed us to in the years. And so it was: "Ghost Rider" is a very "cool" movie, bloated with special effects, full of exceedingly exaggerated action sequences; in short, the classic popcorn movie perfect for spending a couple of hours of mental disengagement, sinking into the seat of a cinema and leaving behind everything that is concrete that moves outside the movie theater. Remaining exclusively within the entertainment optics, "Ghost Rider" works wonderfully, however, unfortunately, to make a movie a good movie something is needed that goes beyond the simple, childish, entertainment. First of all, a well-articulated story is needed, something that "Ghost Rider" does not have, since Mark Steven Johnson has sewn into the screenplay a bit of everything that could be inserted, from the genesis of the (anti)hero to his tormented love story, from a numerous series of fantastic antagonists to a temporal panorama that also embraces the myth of the Old West. By doing so, Johnson remains faithful to the "over the top" spirit of the comic, but does not anchor himself sufficiently to make it a perfect transposition, moreover, he throws too much meat on the fire wanting to make a reduction of an entire comic series that lasted ten years (the first "Ghost Rider" goes from 1973 to 1983), thus creating a story that at times appears rushed and little explored. Further criticisms can be leveled at the construction of the action scenes, sometimes well choreographed, others too rushed and confusing due to excessive visual abstraction. The cast also seems not to work properly: in the role of Johnny Blaze there is a sympathetic but out-of-place Nicholas Cage (the actor wanted this part at all costs given the admiration he has for the world of comics and for "Ghost Rider" in particular), in the role of Roxanne, the woman loved by Johnny, there is a too sexy Eva Mendes ("2Fast 2Furious"; "Hitch") who betrays the physicality of the paper Roxanne. In the roles of the antagonists there are Peter Fonda (Mephistopheles) and Wes Bentley (Blackheart) rather well in the part. Nothing to object to the direction of Mark Steven Johnson ("Daredevil"), who has conducted his work with a firm hand and seriously believing in the project, nor to the special effects of excellent quality, true protagonists of the film: watching the motorcycle escapades of Ghost Rider and his acrobatics, is a spectacle for the eyes! Also suitable is the musical commentary that includes, for the most part, heavy metal tracks (you can recognize Ozzy Osbourne). In conclusion, "Ghost Rider" if considered as a simple mindless popcorn movie, very "cool" and sometimes clumsy, can be pleasant and surely fun; but if you are looking for the best cinematic transposition of a comic book... well, better look elsewhere!