The Nicolas Cage-led Ghost Rider movies, a duology comprised of a self-titled film in 2006 and a 2012 follow-up subtitled Spirit of Vengeance, is, by many accounts, one of the worst cinematic superhero endeavors to ever be put to screen, They've developed into cult classics over the years almost in spite of themselves.
Though the films were hardly well-received at their initial release, the years have been especially unkind to this already maligned duology. Over the last decade, Ghost Rider and Spirit of Vengeance have only gotten worse, proving that age has not improved this disappointing superhero franchise.
Roxanne Simpson
Eva Mendes portrays reporter Roxanne Simpson, the former and future lover of Cage's Johnny Blaze in the first Ghost Rider film, whose presence in the movie is ultimately a bizarre convolution of the plot and a demeaning insult to a talented actress. The fumble with her character in the first film most likely contributed to her unacknowledged absence in the sequel.
Throughout the film, as was the case with many superhero love interests at the time, Simpson was mostly relegated to a background character without much to contribute to the plot. However, the filmmakers also made several bizarre choices with her character, which, on top of being relatively misogynistic, make Roxanne an anomaly. Perhaps chief among these decisions was to include a scene wherein Roxanne consults a Magic 8 ball in the midst of a crowded restaurant for advice on love.
The Love Story
Though many superhero love stories in film often take a backseat to the action scenes, the romance between Johnny Blaze and Roxanne Simpson seems particularly underdeveloped in Ghost Rider, with the two barely making sense as a couple by the time the credits roll.
Besides the relative lack of chemistry between Cage and Mendes, the love story itself is quite poorly written, with several scenes that fail to hold up under today's standards. The film includes sequences wherein Blaze kisses Simpson on the lips without consent and harasses her after she has turned him down, then goes so far as to have Simpson apologize to him. Ultimately, the poorly written romantic subplot is dropped after the first film, with no future mention of Roxanne.
The Effects
It is no secret that the special effects of 2000's films often let down the overall premise of the story. Unfortunately, Ghost Rider is no exception to this rule. Most glaringly in the first film, the effects used to capture the action, and the demonic entity of Ghost Rider himself, are particularly poorly constructed, even for 2006. While the 2011 film improved on the special effects, even the updated CGI cannot quite reach its desired outcome.
While audiences can usually forgive aged CGI, the fact that the Ghost Rider persona itself is so jarring that the hero comes off as laughable rather than fearsome. The scenes featuring Cage as Johnny Blaze, however, proved to be more intimidating than the actual Ghost Rider himself, causing many fans to hope that Cage's version of the character reappears in a multiversal cameo in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, even if it is just to see his rendition of the superhero with improved CGI.
Wasting Donal Logue
Donal Logue may not be an A-list actor, but he has certainly proven his worth in several under-the-radar projects throughout his long career in Hollywood. Appearing in the first film as Blaze's best friend Mack, Logue has very few scenes throughout the movie before being unceremoniously killed off by Blackheart just before the big finale.
Logue's presence in the film barely affects the plot, relegating the actor to a role hardly more than a cameo. What makes this waste of talent even worse, however, is that it came just a few years after Logue appeared in a much more memorable role in Blade, as the vampire Quinn. Logue would go on to appear in more superhero-related media that better understood his talents, including a regular role in the DC series Gotham.
Action Scenes
The Ghost Rider is known for being a violent and fearsome defender of the innocent in the comics, whose skill in combat is matched only by his relentless need to attain vengeance. The films, however, fail to live up to this reputation, featuring some very disappointing action sequences throughout the franchise.
The original Ghost Rider's action suffered from underwhelming CGI, causing many of the fight scenes to feel stagnant and uninspired. Spirit of Vengeance, on the other hand, went the opposite direction, with fight scenes so jarring and fast-paced that one can barely discern what is happening onscreen. The Ghost Rider is one superhero that deserves to join the MCU, if only to see him given some real action scenes worthy of the character.
Idris Elba's Accent
Idris Elba appears in 2011's Spirit of Vengeance as the character Moreau, despite being in a position in his career where such a choice was unprofitable. Nevertheless, he plays a major role in the sequel, though his part in the film is undercut by the character's jarringly bad French accent.
Though the British actor has been lauded as a fantastic actor in the right roles, his portrayal of a Frenchman comes across as little more than a caricature. Not aided at all by the relentlessly generic "French" dialogue given to him, Elba's character falls quite flat in a movie that is quite beneath him.
Drug Usage
A strangely small plot point in the second Ghost Rider film is Johnny Blaze's experience with drug usage in the time since the initial movie. On a number of occasions, the character is depicted consuming pharmaceuticals, even once swallowing a number of them straight from the bottle.
While a subplot exploring the pitfalls of drug abuse may have made for an interesting study, Spirit of Vengeance clearly has no desire to delve deeper than a few visual gags. In the end, the inclusion of Blaze's drug usage comes across as more insensitive than anything else.
Erratic Filmmaking
Despite the lackluster nature of the initial Ghost Rider film, it managed to tell a somewhat grounded story given the source material. Spirit of Vengeance, on the other hand, takes a sharp left turn in terms of filmmaking, becoming an unintelligible string of meshed together scenes filled with intense overacting and truly shoddy camerawork.
Spirit of Vengeance attempted to follow in the footsteps of the Jason Statham Crank films, even sharing their directors. However, as would eventually become clear, the erratic and often jarring fashion of filmmaking used in these films would not catch on and indeed was quite rejected by audiences, making Spirit of Vengeance feel almost unwatchable as the years pass it by.
Marvel Knights
A blink-and-you'll-miss-it anomaly at the beginning of Spirit of Vengeance might catch many present-day viewers off-guard. As the opening logos play out prior to the film's start, the movie is listed as a "Marvel Knights" production, a name which is quite unfamiliar to audiences.
The "Marvel Knights" production banner spoke to Marvel's larger plan to craft films featuring its darker heroes, with designs to possibly unite them somewhere in the future. The production banner was dropped after just two films, the latter being Punisher: War Zone. While the plans for a crossover were quickly scrapped, the character could still appear in a similar team-up, though likely with another actor taking Cage's place as Ghost Rider for the MCU.
The Year
While many early superhero films can often be forgiven for falling short of the expectations set by modern blockbusters, the second Ghost Rider film unfortunately isn't so lucky. Though its predecessor escapes much criticism given its 2006 release date, Spirit of Vengeance is much less forgivable once a viewer realizes that it hit theaters in February of 2012.
By 2012, superhero films had earned themselves a far better reputation than in their early days, and therefore expectations were set much higher than they once were. At its release, the MCU was already in its fourth year, breaking the boundaries of the genre. Ultimately, as a film that was released just three months before The Avengers, Spirit of Vengeance cannot be so easily forgiven.