The Ghost Rider

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Audience Member a weird mix of horror & western genres Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/21/23 Full Review Audience Member Low budget western that would work a lot better if it had a soundtrack to accompany the action scenes. It loses a lot of the drama without it. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review Audience Member [center][img]http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/movie/coverv/31/1038931.jpg[/img] [left] This was a strange movie for me because at times I wanted to turn it off, and other times I was like, "Yeah, kick it up baby, this is rockin." An overall uneven production left me feeling let down at the end, but I'm still going to give it a six, yet it could have easily been a seven or eight. I guess, it helped that I never read the comic books, lived in my mom's basement until I was 28, and work as a night stocker for Target. So I had no preconceived notions of what I wanted to expect -- although the trailers for this film really turned me off, which was unfortunate because it was not a horrible movie like some people made it out to be. Cage did an OK job as the devils dirty deeds ghost rider, the bike was awesome, Sam Elliott was great as usual -- made me want to watch another western with him in it -- , Peter Fonda was a turd of a devil, pretty good special effects too. [center][img]http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/movie/gallery/1156585/photo_04.jpg[/img] A pretty good cast of baddies added some good action scenes. [/center] I think if they had spent a little more time on Cage's ghost riding adventures, and less on his cycle jumping stuff, it would have been more interesting -- but that is just me. Also, the ending was, how do they say, "corny". [img]http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/4625/tomato1bx7.jpg[/img] [/left] [/center] Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/26/23 Full Review Audience Member How many times have you gone to see a movie and you just really wanted it to be good? Well, sometimes a movie is what it is, and you can’t deny it was just a bad movie. Welcome to the [I]Ghost Rider[/I] experience. The story goes that when Johnny Blaze was a young carnie motorcycle stunt rider, he sold his soul to Mephistopheles in exchange for his cancer-ridden father’s health. When Mr. Blaze gets his health back, the devil causes the old rider to have a fatal accident on his bike, and Johnny is stuck working for old ‘Stopheles forever. Cut to modern times. Nicolas Cage is Johnny Blaze, and he has used his deal with the devil to become famous for doing insane stunts that should rightfully kill him. To sum up the film’s long beginning, Johnny hooks up with his childhood romance, Roxanne (Eva Mendes), and they want to rekindle their old flame. Meanwhile, a demon called Blackheart is coming in with his evil gang to do some evil stuff. This is not Devil-Certified Evil, so Mephistopheles wants Blackheart stopped. He taps Blaze and gives him the powers of the Ghost Rider, which means he is bulletproof, has the ability to stare and his head catches on fire. On his fiery motorcycle, Ghost Rider goes off to fight Blackheart and his cronies in what ends up being one very underwhelming fight after another. Mark Steven Johnson, the guy who gave us the not-so-good [I]Daredevil[/I], and the outstanding [I]Daredevil Director’s Cut[/I], is at the helm of [I]Ghost Rider[/I], and from the very beginning you can’t help but feel that he really wanted to give us a comic book. On one side, we have a fun look, one that never seems real, but more comic book-like, which I appreciated. On the other hand, Ghost Rider, with its cheesy dialogue and strange story-telling, never feels like a movie. Also, I don’t really understand why Johnny Blaze turns into Ghost Rider, and suddenly he only churns out horrible lines and laughs really hard. Honestly though, the real problem with [I]Ghost Rider[/I], besides its horrible dialogue and story that doesn’t translate well to film, is the fact that the audience never feels any dread. When you watch Spider-Man fight Doc Ock in [I]Spider-Man 2[/I], you have the feeling of “Oh crap! Spidey is in trouble!” In [I]Ghost Rider[/I], you never feel anything like that. You always know how it is going to end: Evil will be punished, the girl is not going to die and Ghost Rider will ride off into the sunset (and in this movie, he actually does). Rated 1/5 Stars •  Rated 1 out of 5 stars 02/05/23 Full Review Audience Member Not half as bad as some would have us believe... although Nic Cage is no Johnny Blaze, that's for sure. Always interesting to watch people beat up on a comic-book movie. What the hell else did they expect it to be? All I know is: the f/x are damn good, and that's all I really care about. [QUOTE]Nicolas Cage molded his "hard drinking and smoking bad ass" character Johnny Blaze to have more depth. "I'm playing him more as someone who... made this deal and he's trying to avoid confronting it, anything he can do to keep it away from him." Cage also explained that Blaze's stunt riding was a form of escape and a way to keep him connected to his deceased father, who taught him to ride. Cage rode a Buell motorcycle for Blaze's stunt cycle, and a chopper named "Grace", which transforms into the "Hell Cycle", along with the character. The Hell Cycle's wheels, made of pure flames in the comics, were changed to be solid tires covered in flames in order to give the motorcycle more weight onscreen. To express emotion, Ghost Rider's skull flames were designed to change color, such as being toned down and blue when sad. The film's visual effects supervisor, Kevin Mack, and his team at Sony Imageworks handled the difficult task of creating computer-generated fire on a shot-by-shot basis. Ghost Rider's voice was manipulated by sound designer Dane Davis, who won an Academy Award for Sound Editing for [i]The Matrix[/i]. Davis filtered Cage's line readings through three different kinds of animal growls that were played backwards and covered separate frequencies. Davis then amplified the dialogue through a mechanical volumizer. Director Johnson described the sound as a "deep, demonic, mechanical lion's roar".[[/QUOTE] [center][size=4]actual - 6.9[/size] [/center] Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/14/23 Full Review Read all reviews

The Ghost Rider

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