Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2012) Review

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

When we say something is alright, that doesn’t mean we want another batch of it and Hollywood just doesn’t listen to that perspective. 


PLOT


2012’s Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance follows Johnny Blaze passing through Romania trying to keep his cursed persona under wraps as he hopes to get rid of it. He is reached out by a monk named Moreau, who asks for him to help a single mother, Nadya Ketch, and her young son Danny in exchange for his soul to be restored. Danny must be protected to prevent his body being controlled by Roarke aka the Devil Mephistopheles. Johnny does use his powers to protect the boy from a gang of criminals led by her mom’s ex boyfriend Ray Carrigan, but he gets incapacitated when being shot by grenades. Because of this, Danny gets recaptured while Nadya escapes. When Blaze recovers in the hospital, she officially accepts his help to protect her son. Before he would end up saving Danny from Ray near a mining area, she would admit Roarke is his father due to making a deal with her the way he did with the Ghost Rider. After fatally wounding Ray, he loses control and almost uses the Penance Stare on her, until her son intervenes. The following day, Roarke would find Ray’s body and resurrect him to have the ability of decaying anything he touches. Blaze and the Ketches would join Moreau to a monastery where the first Ghost Rider was created, originally the Angel Zarathos the Angel of Justice before being driven insane in Hell, becoming a spirit of vengeance. The only way the spirit became exorcised is once Johnny confesses his deal with Roarke being selfish; He took the deal because he didn’t want his dad to succumb to cancer even though he had accepted his fate. Once Moreau exercises the spirit, Blaze is human again. He doesn’t get to celebrate though due to Ray kidnapping Danny again after killing the monks at the monastery. Johnny infiltrates the intended ritual where Roarke, but Moreau sacrifices himself in a duel against Carrigan. Once Johnny gets close to the boy, Danny grants him back the ability to be the Ghost Rider, while also allowing him to turn in daytime. When Roarke takes him away, the Rider chases him down and not only kills Ray, but also hurls the Devil back to hell with his chain. With Mephistopheles defeated, Zarathos regains sanity to resume being the Angel of Justice. Now channeling the spirit’s blue flames, Johnny uses his new power to revive Danny who almost died in the chase. The film ends with Blaze continuing being the Ghost Rider, but now as the Angel of Justice. 


THOUGHTS


I gave the benefit of the doubt with the first film that made me enjoy it to this day, but low expectations did not save the quality here. Directors Brian Taylor & Mark Neveldine were tasked to match the excitement that was done before, but are nowhere near it. Everything happens way too fast that it becomes hard to maintain interest for not being patient in exploring its source material. That is due to the editing being way too choppy whenever it chooses to focus on something. I do think the redesign on the titular protagonist looks cool, both red and blue. Nicolas Cage even does its best in showing off the Jekyll/Hyde dilemma that Blaze is depicted here, but he over-cages it which loses me. Idris Elba makes Moreau way too one dimensional of a monk with the ideal sense of purpose, which makes me not care much when he dies. I don’t even like the idea that Danny is a kid, not that I have anything against Ferguson Riordan, but his youth enforces a connection between him and Blaze, since neither asked for their predicaments. If Danny was a young adult, it would’ve set him up to be the next Rider and that would’ve been a better sendoff for Blaze. Violante Placido was able to still make Nadya interesting as a determined mother, but there is nothing else to it after that. I usually enjoy Ciaran Hinds, but he wasn’t a good replacement to be Mephisto as he didn’t match the cunning atmosphere the villain was known for. And I wasn’t intimidated either when it came to Johnny Whitworth as Carrigan, this movie’s incarnation as Blackout, because in this case, he didn’t feel psychotic despite having a cool power. He just came off as a man child who looked bored and that’s not a good thing. Because the mix of new and returning characters are nowhere near being fleshed out, the story feels so bland that most of the actions that occur don’t make much sense to me. They make the mistake making this sequel come off as a reboot by reshooting the flashback of Johnny making the deal rather than reuse the footage of the first film. It’s so dumb when that happens because you can make a pointless misunderstanding. And how the hell did Moreau even find Johnny? They’ve met before now, so we should’ve seen him use any tracking abilities if he had any. It’s even strange for Johnny to start with the Penance Stare when he knows that’s gonna take a while before killing the rest of Carrigan’s goons. Hell, Carrigan even messes up to not shoot Nadya just when he incapacitated the Ghost Rider. And how exactly did Johnny get taken to the hospital? Did Nadya drive his motorcycle to get him there or did she flag someone to take him and she hitched the ride as well? I hate it when simple moments don’t get explained. And why didn’t Johnny follow Nadya to the quarry when she knew where to go and didn’t give directions? If he was strong enough to remove the charm blocked by Mephisto to track Danny, that should be addressed too. I refuse to believe he got there on his own when Nadya actually got there before him. It’s even dumb that he got to get the jump on Nadya without making a noise. He’s riding a motorcycle, so that shouldn’t be possible. Again, Danny feeling afraid to be separated from Johnny is very forced. He’s only known him for about two days and even if he sees him more of a father than Roarke is off of protecting him, he should’ve known they’d separate for his sake. Also, how does Carrigan know where to find Danny? If he’s got tracking abilities like Ghost Rider, it shouldn’t be hard to say aloud than having us figure it out. I even couldn’t stand Nadya even daring to criticize Johnny messing up as a protector when her son gets take in the monastery. She doesn’t have the right to judge since not even she wasn’t enough to protect him either no matter how much you want to respect her efforts. Lastly, how the hell did Danny not have a scratch on him during the climactic crash? If he had gotten scratched during the second fight, I don’t get why he physically appears fine while feeling mentally drained right when it’s wrapping up. Ignoring all of these issues is honestly a mission because each thing is so upsetting to pick up on. To get this over with, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is one of the worst of Marvel adaptations for lacking any passion that was there before. If you enjoy superheroes, there will be no shame in avoiding this and sticking with predecessor, or just enjoying the Agents of SHIELD version in the abc series.