Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance 3D

Hell of a Ride

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Rated: PG-13   Intense sequences of action and violence, some disturbing images and language.
Release Date: February 17, 2012
Runtime: 1 hr 36 mins

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Director:  Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor

Writers: Scott M. Gimple, Seth Hoffman, David S. Goyer
Cast:  Nicolas Cage, Violante Placido, Ciarán Hinds, Idris Elba, Fergus Riordan, Christopher Lambert, Johnny Whitworth

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SYNOPSIS:  Johnny Blaze, the human vessel for the demonic Ghost Rider, lives off the radar in Eastern Europe in an attempt to contain and purge the Spirit of Vengeance. When he is called upon to stop the devil from taking human form on earth, Blaze must let the Ghost Rider loose to battle the demon in exchange for ridding himself of the Ghost Rider curse for good.

REVIEW: The Crank and Gamer directing team Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor return with their extreme directing and aggressive cinematic style for one of the fringe, but surprisingly powerful, Marvel Comics characters. Based on a story from David S. Goyer (The Dark Knight, Blade), Scott M. Gimple (FlashForward, Chase) and Seth Hoffman (Prison Break, FlashForward) join Goyer on writing duties to bring the motorcycle-riding, flaming-skulled chain-wielding spirit of vengeance back into the popularity it deserves. Can the writing team lead by Goyer, directed by the Neveldine/Taylor extreme team, and reprised by Nicolas Cage do for Ghost Rider what Goyer, Norrington and Snipes did for another fringe Marvel character - vampire hunter Blade?

In the first Ghost Rider, motorcycle circus stuntman Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage, Drive Angry 3D) sells his soul to the devil in order to save his father's life. As with every contract with Lucifer, the small print does not keep Blaze's father from death, only the cancer that was killing him. Years later Blaze suddenly becomes host to the demonic flaming Ghost Rider, an unstoppable engine of vengeance that looks to dish out justice against criminals and demons alike. In Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Johnny Blaze has escapes to Eastern Europe in an attempt to keep the Ghost Rider contained within him. Buy removing himself from reach of criminals and the seedy underbelly elements, Blaze is able to keep the demon from forcing itself out to mettle out vengeance. When a young boy Danny (Fergus Riordan, I Want to be a Soldier) and his mother Nadya (Violante Placido, The American) under the care of a an ancient religious order are attacked by gunrunner Ray Carrigan (Johnny Whitworth, Limitless) and a group of mercenaries, mother and son escape and fall off the radar from both friend and foe. Alcoholic ex-priest Moreau (Idris Elba, Thor) tracks down Johnny Blaze with the promise of removing the Ghost Rider curse if Blaze releases the Ghost Rider to hunt down Danny in order to keep him safe from the devil Rourke (Ciarán Hinds, The Debt) who looks to transfer his own power and essence into the 13-year-old boy he helped to conceive.

Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor are a new breed of directors, with origins steeped in videos and low budget efforts that required innovative ways to 'get the shots'. Both have no qualms donning a pair of rollerblades, gripping the back of a pacing motorcycle, letting go and shooting the scene with a camera as they coast along at breakneck asphalt speeds without helmets. The same can be said for their take on this second entry of the Ghost Rider.

The flaming skeleton rider may still don a leather jacket but gone are the shiny metal spikes and black cowhide material, instead replaced by charred and bubbling leather and an ever present length of hell chain. The Ghost Rider's gleaming skull replaced by a blackened smoldering cranium. Even the Ghost Rider's flames, emotive in the first film ranging from brilliant raging reds to subdued saddened blues are replaced by more dangerous yellow angry licks of flames laden with an oily black trailer smoke. For the money, the Ghost Rider looks deadly, more gritty and darker than the demon that graced the screen in the Ghost Rider's first big screen appearance in 2007.

The movie is as good as the first film, only completely different. The Ghost Rider is different, but visually cool. His powers are expanded, still using the chain but also able to 'hellify' any vehicle he commandeers. The Ghost Rider is more manic and crazy each time he is released from the confines of the human vessel Johnny Blaze. The setting is different, moving from the new glass and steel America to a history-rich stone Eastern Europe. Gone is the love interest in Eva Mendes' Roxanne, replaced by mother Nadya only interested in the safety of their son. Head demon Mephistopheles in the form of top salesman Peter Fonda and Wes Bentley's Blackheart are usurped by Ciaran Hinds' elder politican Roarke and Johnny Whitworth's Ray Carrigan who Roarke embodies with a fraction of power to become a creature able to decay anything he touches and create a perimeter field of total darkness to fight in (similar to the Marvel Comics Ghost Rider villain Blackout who used Ray Carrigan as an alias). And in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Highlander Christopher Lambert make an appearance as ancient order high priest Methodius tasked with keeping the boy safe with in his sanctuary.

The story is decent, but still does not do the Ghost Rider the justice and showcase he deserves. The Ghost Rider may not be at the level of the Earth's Mightiest Avengers, but he routinely eliminates the hordes of hell. The best story may be a story that will never see the light of the screen, namely that of the Midnight Sons and the story of Lilith and the Lilan, including appearances by Blade, the Nightstalkers, Danny Ketch's Ghost Rider, a curse free Johnny Blaze, and the vampire Morbius. Not a direct war with the devil, that story would add more characters, tensioned interactions and alliances and a stable of grotesque killers and demons for the heroes to battle.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is a camp-filled hell ride. Nicolas Cage is totally committed to the role of the tortured Johnny Blaze. Fergus Riordan plays Danny with both innocence and a killer stone cold glare. Both Elba and Whitworth are capable, working on opposite sides of the battlefield of good and evil. The 3D is not as impressive as it could be, leading to a recommendation to save a couple dollars by taking in a 2D viewing if possible. Comic fans will be torn by the departure from the source material, but being a second- or third-stringer in the Marvel Universe does allow for more latitude in the story. Appealing as a popcorn movie for action and some horror, Ghost Rider gets points for visual appeal, cool action sequences, and a better villain than in the first film. Otherwise, if you do not care for the Ghost Rider, please do not take your vengeance out of any of the reviewers.

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WORTH: Matinee or DVD (for the fans)

NYCC: Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

New York Comic Con
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance 

Director: Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor

Writers: David S. Goyer, Roy Thomas, Seth Hoffman
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Idris Elba, Ciaran Hinds, Johnny Placido, Johnny Whitworth

NYCC: In the IGN Theatre of the Jacobs Javitz Convention Center, two guerilla filmmakers presented their vision of one of the most under-appreciated, darkest, most powerful anti-heroes of the Marvel Universe. Nicolas Cage starred as Johnny Blaze, former circus motorcycle daredevil cursed from a deal with the devil in Mark Steven Johnson's 2007 Ghost Rider. Now, Nicolas Cage returns February 2012 with Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.

Directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, known for Jason Statham's Crank and Crank 2: High Voltage, use their visceral style to take the Ghost Rider riding hard into a completely different direction. Starting with a behind-the-scenes featurette that highlights the hands-on approach the directing pair takes to bring their type of action to the screen, the audience was treated to rollerblading directors gripping the back of a motorcycle to 20 or 30 miles per hours with one hand and a camera with the other to get a high speed motorcycle shot. Other scenes show the directors hanging on wires along with their stuntmen in order to create practical real action - instead of relying solely on CG effects.

Adding to that idea, Neveldine and Taylor changed the look of their demonic anti-hero. Changing from glossy to smoking bubbling leather and a gleamy white to charred ashen flaming skull, the directors discussed how they research how leather and bone truly react to fire - offering a more "true" representation of the skeletal demonic avenger.

If the trailers the audience saw were any indication, this Ghost Rider will come at you with intensity and a bad ass attitude. This Ghost Rider looks like it will be a hell-ified thrill ride!

Limitless

Not Quite Limitless

Director: Neil Burger

Writer: Leslie Dixon (screenplay), Alan Glynn (novel)

Stars: Bradley Cooper, Robert DeNiro, Abbie Cornish, Andrew Howard, Anna Friel, Johnny Whitworth

RANT: Me and the boys from work quested to the College Point movie theater to take in Limitless. The theater is not the Westbury Regal I frequent and love, but it'll do in a pinch - especially since its 2 blocks from work. A quick Wendy's dinner and we were off!

SYNOPSIS: Loser Eddie Morra can't keep his girlfriend or write the first word in his novel, until he takes a top-secret drug that expands his brain to its limit - and beyond.

Director of The Lucky Ones and The Illusionist, Neil Burger, takes a screenplay written by Pay It Forward scribe Leslie Dixon from a novel by Alan Glynn entitled The Dark Fields. Limitless, as it is now called, revolves around Eddie Morra, a struggling writer and human being who is presented the gift of a lifetime - a pill that allows the user to access 100% of their brain.

The movie is presented with narrative from Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper) a la Sunset Boulevard as he stands on the edge of a balcony several stories up in a high rise apartment, ready to make the leap to his death. What has brought this man to the brink? An experimental drug, MDT-48, which, in the words of Eddie, grants the user a 4-digit IQ. Able to write his novel in 4 days and turn a paltry sum of money into $1.2 million through undetected stock market patterns, Eddie sees this wonder drug as his ticket to bigger and better things. But Carl Van Loon (Robert DeNiro) says to Eddie, "...you haven't earned this gifts", implying that using his super-computer brain without paying his dues will only lead to arrogance, entitlement and corrupt behavior.

Limitless is shot alternately with rich colors schemes and muted washed out tones. The intro title sequence is kinetic and rich, alluding to what the world must be like when using an enhancement substance like MDT-48. Some of the cinematography is disorienting, which also lets the moviegoer feel what its like to be on MDT-48.

While the protagonist is Eddie Morra, the villain of the story could be many people. Throughout the film, Eddie struggles against many obstacles. The first is his own inability to be a better person before the pills. Then he becomes involved in more than one murder that quickly dissipates into plot obscurity. Robert DeNiro's Van Loon could be the bad guy but Morra uses Van Loon's resources to get ahead financially and to learn the finance game. There is even a loan shark, Gennady (Andrew Howard) that wants his money back, as well as a taste of the drug. But at the end of the day, the real antagonist is addiction. Addiction to wealth, superiority, greed, and drugs all play their part.

The story loses strength and its way at times during the film, but finds its way back again as Eddie realizes that there is more at stake than the limitless potential of pharmaceuticals. The audience must have been on MDT-48 as well because some parts of the script on screen were obvious and easily discerned. Cooper's character Eddie says that he sees 50 scenarios, but an intelligent viewer will see much of the film unfold before it actually does.

Limitless is a neat techno-thriller with a couple cool ingredients. You have Bradley Cooper with his cool charm and sharp blue eyes, Robert DeNiro with an admiration and envy of a man he can't figure out, and a plight as to how Eddie will survive on the pills without burning out or killing himself or survive once the pills run out. If you have no other films on your docket, give Limitless a try. Otherwise, you can wait.

WORTH: Matinee or Netflix

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