Ghost Rider

[Shaolin Dog Paw]

Finally went to seet this movie. Ive always liked the ghost rider comic books and have a good knowledge of the character. I thought I'd break down the movie for other comic fans.

The Visuals:

Everything looked just how it should have looked, ghost rider looked like ghost rider, his bike looked like it belonged to ghost rider. The special effects were great, the locations were pretty good as well. Wish it could have had more of a comic look like 300 or Sin City.
The biggest flaw was casting. I like cage, but i dont like cage as ghost rider. I didnt like his hair plugs and dyed black hair. Peter Fonda plays the devil, didnt look or feel like the devil. Al Pacino makes for a great devil not Peter Fonda. Peter played a biker in a few movies but that doesnt make him a good fit for Ghost Rider.

Action:

Almost void of any action. The fight scenes are very quick. Which was dissapointing, because the story builds up to the encounter but then the encounter is over in less than a minute. The end battle was about 10 minutes long but only had a couple of gun shots, a punch... over. It's like a kung fu movie with jackie chan's picture on the front with his name in big bold letters and he only does a cameo.

Plot:

It was great in the beginning but quickly lost track towards the middle. Seemed like it was rushed, nothing was elaborated upon, character development stopped, and Ghost Rider seemed to not get as much screen time. The relationship between Johnny Blaze and Roxanne should have been explored a little deeper. The ending was decent but still left the viewer with a sense of loss. This could have been a great movie but alot of vital elements were missing. Like character development, action, and casting.

IMHO, watch this movie if your a die hard Marvel comic book fan who does not care about the quality, to an extent, but just cares that a movie was made about Ghost Rider. Other than that, wait for it to come out on DVD so you can fast forward through the slow parts.

[limubai2000]

I did like how Cage played JB as a haunted person but aside from that the rest of the film is mostly junk. The old west Ghost Rider was very awesome to see on screen but it was also cliched by the fact that I figured out it would happen the first time we met you know who.

Yes I share the big gripe about the fights, they sucked plain and simple. We needed far longer beatdowns and chain smacking going on in the film to make it worth my $7.50! The soundtrack was at least pretty good and I did like the guy who played Blackheart, he fit the role well.

Also I hated how GR just reappeared after getting smacked in between the trucks, I expected a far cooler scene there. They had so many chances to do great things in the film but it just fell flat.

The Penance Stare was nice to see.

[Shaolin Dog Paw]

LMB, you got it right. Im glad someone else felt a little ripped off by the lack of action in the movie.

I kind of had mixed feelings about Cage as GR. Its almost like the way i felt when Michael Keaton played batman. Its hard to explain. Simple; looking back, nobody else could have filled the batman boots so perfectly.

Maybe GR2 will be a little better. At least we can rely on Spiderman 3 kicking alot of butt.

[godzillakungfu]

Actually, go watch Spider-Man again. Ghost rider had about the same amount of action.

See, good or bad they learned from the hulk. Intro Movies are less action oriented to save money. Now that it has made its money back if they do a 2 I think it will be over saturated like Blade-2 or Spider-man 2.

[Shaolin Dog Paw]

well, my problem wasn't so much the lack of action scenes but the quality. I think the Hulk was a great movie despite what many critics have said. The few action scenes in the hulk were just amazing, like the fight against those three dog creature things... best fight scene ever!

Spiderman's plot and character development was so good that it didnt have to rely on action scenes to flesh out the characters. Spiderman did have fight scenes on top of the great story and the fight scenes were magnificent.

There was a great build up to the few fights in spiderman, and the fights didnt leave you hanging (no pun intended) or leave the viewer with a sense of lacking. IMHO i dont think that GR2 will be very good no matter how much action is there, unless the story improves and the casting is looked over once more. The masses want a good story, and with a good story and even better characters, the action won't really have to be as prevelant.