 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 | 🎙️ EPISODE 625: 12.22.22 Starting in 2020, I decided to watch & review the entire Nicolas Cage filmography in alphabetical order. This is 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔜𝔢𝔞𝔯 𝔬𝔣 ℭ𝔞𝔤𝔢 – Chapter 31. Wow. Honestly, this was one of the most surprising movies I've watched all year. As noted last time, we are currently in the lowest period of The Year of Cage, my alphabetical filmography review series of Nicolas Cage. The letter "G" has not been kind to our crazy friend. In fact, the original Ghost Rider was so bad that I put off watching the sequel for over two months only to find that the movies in between were somehow much worse! Just a shocking run of trash, folks. And while this movie is hardly 'good' but any stretch of the definition, it's world's better than its franchise predecessor. To say this shocked me is an understatement. Clocking in at 18% on R.T. (a shade better than GR1's lowly 27%, but still), I had the lowest expectations possible. |
The film begins with Idris Elba and some chaos at an Eastern European monastery before a mountainside motorcycle crash. AKA a much better start than the forced origin story in the first movie. It still looks pretty bad but definitely an improvement on 2007's pile of dog poop...
Then we're introduced to Cage via a cartoon voiceover where he recaps the plot of the Ghost Rider 1...
It's pretty stupid but the animation is OK and it's relatively concise as far as these things go. Helmed by the dudes who made the Jason Statham action schlock Crank films in the mid 00s — director duo Neveldine/Taylor who essentially split up after this — Spirit of Vengeance obviously suffers from the era's CGI which has aged incredibly poorly. But there's a real sense of fun here and that — along with a more streamlined plot — makes this a far more enjoyable watch.
Then Cage meets Elba...
Elba plays Moreau, a French member of a secret religious organization who's always drunk. He tasks Cage with finding a boy who has 1/2 devil genetics before the devil people — now led by Ciarán Hinds taking over the role from Peter Fonda (a marked improvement!) — can do a ritual that makes him a bonafide demon on earth. Or something. It doesn't matter. The plot is simple: bring the boy back to Idris Elba and he'll lift the curse of being the Ghost Rider, freeing Cage's soul.
So Cage tracks down the boy and his mom just as the demon's henchmen are about to murder her and abduct the kid, and we get our first major Ghost Rider action set piece...
Visually this is much better looking! It feels more contained and refined and I guess four years makes a big difference when it comes to this kind of stuff. He does his patented soul suck thing too...
But he's interrupted, as the boy has some kind of power and uses it on Cage. Distracted by this, they hit Cage with a rocket launcher and drive off with the devil boy, Danny...
He wakes up in a hospital and Cage is great in this scene, as he steals a bunch of pain meds and takes off...
The kidnappers put the boy on the phone with the head devil dude and he whispers some demon language over phone that will make Danny impossible to mind-track for Cage (or something)...
Cage links up with the boy's mom and he does some exposition as he pops some pills...
Only Cage could a read line like "I get it... you're the devil's baby mama" with such panache. Then we get another cartoon that's way too harsh on Jerry Springer...
Cage and the devil's baby mama go to some illegal fight club type place where Cage tries his best to control the Rider as they interrogate some thug...
Just some classic Cage right there! A+!! But it was only a matter of time before he unleashed the Rider again...
I normally don't like this 'type' of CGI (i.e., "bad" or "not good") but there's something so stupidly fun about it here. Like it's not taking itself so seriously.
It's all a set-up for the best action sequence in the entire movie. Even if it's still 'not for me' necessarily, I can appreciate it. This set-piece takes place on some massive industrial equipment and it goes on and on and gets crazier and crazier. Fuck it, here's the whole four minutes...
I think not having to do the whole origin story really helped here. They could just launch right into the plot instead of what was a pretty boring, obligatory forty minutes last go-around.
The next morning, Cage, the devil boy and his mama all go out to breakfast and it's pretty funny...
The bee reference? The swigging from a large pitcher of water? I don't think any of this is supposed to be funny but it is VERY funny. Meanwhile (speaking of funny), the devil reanimates his dead henchman and he grows a blonde wig lol...
"You're a little less than alive now, but also more" (?)... oh the writing in this! It's almost too good, but also more.
Cage and Danny continue their bonding in the truck later that day. And, again, it's not taking itself so seriously. In fact, it's not taking itself seriously AT ALL. This is it, people. This is the tone for these superhero movies. Why don't people realize that?
They link up with Elba again, but Blondie is hot on their tail. Blondie tests out his newfound power of decay on various food that rots and molds instantaneously in his hands. Everything that is, but a Twinkie. Get it?
Elba takes them to a hidden monk's temple in the mountains and a bunch of tattooed-face monks greet them. There, he further explains to Cage the Rider's origins... With another cartoon...
This scene goes on too long but it's not bad. It ends with Elba giving Cage a communion which will expel the Rider for good...
This causes Cage to go through some sort of cosmic transition... like a part angel/part fire demon detox. Cage is unhinged. It's stupid and wild and kind of awesome?...
I found myself being consistently surprised by this. As soon as he comes out of the freakout, it turns out that the tattooed monks are actually bad guys and they've kidnapped Elba and the mother, and they want to kill the boy because he's got devil in them and he can't be saved (in THEIR opinion). Cage, without his powers, is, well, umm.... powerless...
Just as the main monk is about to behead Danny, he's attacked by Blondie. Because Blondie's weird decay power thing is easier to showcase via CGI in a black space background (I assume), they make all of his victims appear in this strange, formless setting for the kills. It's either lazy or cool-looking. I'm not sure which and that's also the point? But also more? ...
All the monks are dead and Blondie takes the boy to "Uzak Gökten" in Turkey, a place known in Christian Mythology as the farthest location on earth from heaven, to do the devil ritual thing before his 13th birthday. Danny and his devil dad are reunited. Meanwhile, Elba takes Cage and mom to a basement full of machine guns and wine to stock up for the rescue mission. The demon has to give his son a sedative before the ceremony. It's funny that he can just turn someone from a corpse into a zombie killer but he can't control his own son. Ah well, nevertheless! A bunch of killers and criminals come to watch the ceremony dressed in cloaks...
Yeah, everything's falling off the rails but it's still pretty fun. Elba starts gunning down the guards as a newly powerless Cage just punches the devil out before Elba gets killed by Blondie. RIP...
Blondie then tries to kill cage but the little kid makes Cage the Rider again...
Then Cage does battle with Blondie inside a computer, I mean on top of a moving car....
RIP Blondie! Welp, only one more bad guy to get and that's the devil himself, and Cage desposes of him easily by literally throwing him back into hell with his chain lol...
The movie ends with Cage talking about the angel inside of him, and because of this, he brings Danny back to life. Then it ends. Did they win? Hell yes! ...
One more "G"movie, folks! Then it's onto the "H" section. That's how the alphabet works duh!
THE VERDICT: 6 CAGES OUT OF 10 • CLICK HERE for all 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔜𝔢𝔞𝔯 𝔬𝔣 ℭ𝔞𝔤𝔢 Chapters + Ongoing Rankings.
CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 624 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 626 ⫸
⫷ EPISODE 624 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 626 ⫸
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is a 2011 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics antihero Ghost Rider. It is a sequel to the 2007 film Ghost Rider and features Nicolas Cage reprising his role as Johnny Blaze / Ghost Rider with supporting roles portrayed by Ciarán Hinds, Violante Placido, Johnny Whitworth, Christopher Lambert, and Idris Elba. The film was directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, from a screenplay written by Scott M. Gimple, Seth Hoffman, and David S. Goyer. Released publicly for one night on December 11, 2011, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance had its wide commercial release in 2D and 3D. It was released on December 11, 2011.
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