Ghost Rider - 2007

"Ghost Rider" - 2007
Dir. by Mark Steven Johnson - 1 hr. 50 min.

Official Trailer (Espanol)

by Clayton Hollifield

2007 was a simpler time. Superhero movies hadn't yet steamrolled everything in sight. Also, you could still shop at a Toys 'R Us. And, you know, do other stuff too, like shaking people's hands or coughing in public. Nicolas Cage was known for making batty movies with even battier acting choices yet, but that was still pre-meme supremacy era. The odds that any given superhero movie was going to be worthwhile was an uneven bet. Hollywood didn't know what to do with this material, outside of individuals who got it right. But studios seemed more willing to take a shot at these kinds of movies.

Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage) is a second-generation circus motorcycle stunt rider, part of his father's act. Burton Blaze (Brett Cullen) is his father, a stern man with a dangling cigarette and rockin' sideburns. After another night of getting his ass chewed out (not a euphemism - people didn't eat ass in 2007, at least not as a point of public pride), Johnny discovers some concerning news about his father. In classic fashion, a very fancy man, Mephistopheles (Peter Fonda) shows up and offers young Mr. Blaze a deal; his father's health for Johnny's soul. Johnny takes Meph up on the offer, and it turns out to be not exactly what he expected it to be. So Johnny bails super-hard, leaving his life (and girlfriend) behind.

Life ain't nothing but bikes and jelly beans

There's a lot to say about this movie, which seems weird, because there's not a lot to this movie. So let's go with the good first. The cast for Ghost Rider is pretty good. Nic Cage is bonkers, and I had no confidence anyone would get this right as a movie, so it at least has his stash of insane line readings to fall back on. But past that there's Donal Logue as Johnny Blaze's buddy, Eva Mendes as the female-shaped object, Sam Elliott doing Undertaker-style promos in a graveyard, Rebel Wilson making the most of her one minute on screen, and Peter Fonda cashing in some motorcycle-movie credit here. Everything interesting in this film comes from actors hamming things up. One problem for me is that the villain, Blackheart (Wes Bentley) was eye-rollingly bad throughout the film, in pretty much every way. If you sat down and thought about what's the worst version of the villain from Hell trope, please believe that Wes Bentley topped that and took home a trophy for how bad his character was. I don't know if it was him, the writing, or an unholy combination of the two, but when the villain just comes off like a try-hard dork, then the hero vs. villain aspect that's supposed to drive the film is going to fail.

The biggest problems with this film is that you can see the Hollywood fingerprints all over it. Part of that is that they had not yet figured out how to consistently nail superhero stories. In the Avengers arc, yes there were romantic elements present, but that's not the thrust of any of the stories. They're oddly asexual in that manner (aside maybe from the first Thor and Natalie Portman's delightful agogness); they're more about rising to the occasion, heroism, duty, honor, and all that stuff. In Ghost Rider, one of the main plot points is Johnny Blaze continually bailing on Roxanne (Eva Mendes), and that part of the story is given more attention than the whole save-the-world-from-Mephistopheles thing. Superhero stories are about looking good enough to get laid, but not about the actual laying. This one falls back on having the basic romance being the thrust, instead of just having Ghost Rider looking badass and scaring the crap out of hoods. There is also the fact that there's not another memorable female character present, which isn't make or break, but is part of the problem here. Roxanne exists not out of her own agency, but basically as something for Blaze to win over.  

But the biggest issue is a problem that we film-viewers are going to have to increasingly deal with: old digital effects look cheesy. I'm not going to hammer on that point, but watching a 13 year old movie that relies on effects is going to have to compete with all the advances that digital effects have made in that time span. I will give some credit; I've been re-reading the 90's Ghost Rider comics lately, and this movie does a good job of replicating the look and feel of those comics. Unfortunately, the people who would be stoked about that would also be annoyed that the main character of the movie is Johnny Blaze, since it was Danny Ketch who was the star of that particular comic series. Comic fans are funny like that.

Chug!  Chug!  Chug!

So look, Ghost Rider was a bad movie even when it came out. I think the main reason this one exists is because Cage was a Ghost Rider fan, and he got to get paid to cosplay, and why would you turn that down? But it's not like there are any great Ghost Rider comics to have drawn upon for inspiration, it's just a character that looks awesome, but no one has really managed to do much with that. Time hasn't done this movie any favors, but the cast is absolutely to my taste. So it wasn't painful to rewatch. It's also pretty unlikely I'll be rewatching it again soon; literally everyone I liked in this movie has other movies that are way better.

1.5/5 - Streaming (HD)

Gone in Sixty Seconds - 2000

"Gone in Sixty Seconds" - 2000
Dir. by Dominic Sena - 1 hr. 58 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

I'm not going to represent "Gone in Sixty Seconds" as any kind of good movie.  Having said that, I've probably watched it half a dozen times, and I've been wanting to watch it again for a few months now.  Considering all of the actors involved here, this film underachieves.  But then again, there's sometimes comfort in a paint-by-numbers story, like the comfort in repeating rituals.  Plus, goofball Nicolas Cage.

Memphis Raines (Nicolas Cage) runs a go-kart park in the middle of nowhere, but is pulled back into his previous life of crime through his younger brother's errors.  Raymond Calitri (Christopher Eccleston), a British woodworker/criminal boss, hired Kip (Giovanni Ribisi) to steal some cars, and he didn't deliver.  Since obviously the price for failure is death, only Memphis can save Kip, by finishing the job.  The job?  Stealing fifty cars in three days.  That means Memphis is going to need a crew.  And then they steal some cars, with the clock ticking.

"Gone in Sixty Seconds" is like the gearhead version of "Ocean's Eleven."  Not in quality, of course.  There are no elegantly-planned heists, this isn't a crew of fashionably-dressed rogues.  It's Nic Cage and a team of neuroses leading a bunch of stereotype-filling weirdos on a mission of brute force: steal everything, and drive fast while doing it.  For Kip.  And I have absolutely no problem with any of that.  I'm not sure that one could make the case that having better dialogue, or more well-rounded characters, or really anything other than what's already on the screen would have improved the end result.  I mean, I wouldn't have dressed the one woman in the movie, Angelina Jolie, in a series of potato sacks, and I wouldn't have given her pseudo-bleached blonde dreadlocks, either.  I might have made the enemies of the Raines brothers (that would be the police on his trail, played by Delroy Lindo and Timothy Olyphant, and the aforementioned evil British woodworker) a little more formidable, but it's not that kind of movie.

For a car movie, there's an awful lot of oohing and aahing over the vehicles, and there are some pretty sweet whips here, but director Dominic Sena never seems to take any visual delight in the machines that all of these gearheads are driving around.  There are no loving shots of classic cars, no emphasis on them at all.  The chase scenes are all rapid-cut monstrosities, with no real attention paid to what's involved.  If you're showing a lion chasing a zebra in the jungle, at least give us the opportunity to appreciate what a lion and a zebra are.  And again, this doesn't really matter much to the end product.  "Gone in Sixty Seconds" delivers exactly what it promises - Nic Cage being a little weird while trying to get one over on the man.  But it's also morally defensible, because he's doing it for his kid brother.  And also, screw that British guy and his silly benches.

Even with all of these things being provable facts, "Gone in Sixty Seconds" is still pretty fun.  This kind of story gets told over and over again, and it doesn't seem to get old.  There's a kind of comfort in watching the reluctant hero having to reassemble his army of misfits.  Then we get to watch this army accomplish what seems impossible, until something goes wrong near the end.  And usually, then success.  And all of this while we have to endure the quirks of the man himself.

That story works.  You can plug in any batch of actors, and as long as the goal is action-oriented, you've pretty much got a functional movie.  Sometimes you can add in bits and twists, but that's not that important.  "Gone in Sixty Seconds" is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch.  And the same way that I'll more than likely eat another PB&J, I'll probably end up watching this silly movie again, too.

2 / 5 - TV (HD)

Valley Girl - 1983

"Valley Girl" - 1983
Dir. by Martha Coolidge - 1 hr. 39 min.

Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

There are some stories that get told over and over again, partly because the intended audience will be too young to know that this story has been told before.  The surface may be different, but the essential plot is the same.  In the case of "Valley Girl," this is an '80s Los Angeles take on "Romeo and Juliet."  It's not an insult to say that "Valley Girl" draws on the same story that Baz Luhrmann would about a decade later (and it's not an insult to any of the other teen dramas that draw on other Shakespeare plays, like "10 Things I Hate About You), but you should know by now whether or not a story's heritage is going to make it feel comfortably familiar or boringly derivative.

When you think of a "valley girl," you are thinking of Julie (Deborah Foreman), who is popular, communicates only in slang, hangs out at the mall with her other popular friends, and dates a popular guy.  Well, to start with, anyways.  Julie dumps Tommy (Michael Bowen) because he kind of looks like Will Forte...  no, that's not it.  He's kind of an ass, and she's tired of it, and there's a huge house party that night anyways.  Fred (Cameron Dye) overhears about the party on the beach, so he and Randy (Nicolas Cage) decide to crash it.  Problem is, Fred and Randy are punks, and everyone else at the party have popped collars and poofed hair.  They get thrown out, but not before Randy and Julie share a moment, which evolves into something more, something that Julie's friends can't wrap their heads around.  Because Randy's a weirdo who goes to a different high school anyways, Julie's friends put pressure on her to ditch Randy and return to Tommy's condescending clutch.

I've got to admit, I've got a soft spot in my heart for films from the '80s that also show off the contemporary music scene, particularly ones set in Los Angeles.  I listened to a ton of west coast punk music, and it's fun to see that represented in film, in a way that seems not to happen as frequently any more.  It was a huge music scene, and perhaps MTV wasn't that open to what was being produced in L.A. at the time, and there seem to have been quite a few people in that music scene that were making films as well as enjoying the music.  In general, the soundtrack is pretty amazing (although there wasn't really an official soundtrack release, which is another, longer story), and there are scenes in the film showing the Plimsouls performing, whom you might know from their smash hit, "A Million Miles Away."

This movie is also notable for being a very early Nicolas Cage movie.  Yes, he's pretty weird here, but he's supposed to be a punk rocker, which were regarded as aliens at the time.  It's interesting watching movies of this vintage, as the dynamic seems to have flipped.  If you made this film today, the popped collar crew would have been the villains (instead of merely being the normal, popular kids), and the punks would be the heroes, instead of the weirdos that the normal kid will have to learn to accept.  Or not.  It's really up to them whether or not the punks are going to be allowed to survive, or are just going to be the recipients of repeated beatings by the football team.  But at least "Valley Girl" is honest.  When Julie asks her dad for advice about which boy she ought to be with, she asserts that popularity does matter, even if her heart doesn't feel that way, and that her friends can't be persuaded otherwise, and that she's jeopardizing her future by not trying to "marry up," in a way.

I really enjoyed "Valley Girl."  It hits some sweet spots - the '80s punk/new wave music, the driving tour of Hollywood at nighttime, and gonzo Nic Cage.  The plot is time-tested and box office approved, and still works, even under a new coat of paint.  Part of the appeal here is nostalgia, part is time-travelling into a weird world where Cage is considered hunky, and part is just laughing at vapid valley-speak.  But "Valley Girl" hums along, and is a pretty tight film.  You could do worse if you were digging through your lost collection of VHS tapes and stumbled across this one.

3.5 / 5 - TV (HD)

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance - 2012

"Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" - 2012
Dir. by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor - 1 hr. 35 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

First off, if you're in any way annoyed/offended by Marvel Comics' treatment of Ghost Rider co-creator Gary Friedrich, feel free to direct your attention/dollars to this benefit t-shirt.  I intend to, myself.

Onto the movie, which isn't very good.  You could probably tell that from the trailer, but let me reinforce that point.  There are concrete reasons for why this isn't a good movie, some of which are entirely unrelated to the source material.  But, since I brought it up, let's address the source material.  One thing has been proven in regards to comic book adaptations: if there isn't already a definitive story to refer to, Hollywood is largely unable to create one.  It's the dividing line that ought to be used when determining whether or not to make a movie based on any given character.  The biggies (and the most creatively successful franchises) like Batman, Spider-Man, or the X-Men all have numerous famous stories that you could pick up and use as the foundation for a movie.  The unsuccessful ones (and I'm counting the ones that have multiple attempts), like the Incredible Hulk, Punisher, or Ghost Rider movies, for the most part don't have any stories that you'd hand to someone as an ideal representation of those characters.  Good stories, sure, but Batman has at least half a dozen stories that you'd need to read before you had a good grasp of the character.  Speaking as someone who's read more than a few Ghost Rider comics, the essential Ghost Rider story either doesn't yet exist, or there just isn't one.

And over these multiple attempts that just never click with characters like Ghost Rider, the vacuum that exists where a definitive story ought to live has never been filled in adequately by any Hollywood screenwriter.  Ghost Rider, as a character, is pretty much a cool visual and spooky Devil nonsense.  When you hand this half-formed mess to filmmakers like Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, whose resume includes directing the "Crank" films and "Gamer," as well as writing the hot garbage of "Jonah Hex," it's highly unlikely that they're going to build anything meaningful on such unstable ground.  Yes, there's fire and explosions everywhere, but they also take Johnny Blaze from a teetotaler in the previous movie (remember his infamous martini glass of jelly beans) to an alcoholic pill-popper in an effort to lend some PG-13 grittiness to the proceedings.

I feel like I've adequately expressed why and how this movie isn't very good, and I don't think there's any reason to keep beating that dead horse.  Instead, I'll take a gleeful turn, and let you know that pretty much every bit of joy that there is to be had in this film is due to Nicolas Cage's fantastic over-acting.  Most people would be demoralized to have to produce such an awful film (and really, if there's anything about this film that I've overlooked that would suggest that the goal was anything other than producing a hot turd in a vain attempt to turn a quick buck, I beg you to let me know what it is), but it seems to energize Cage instead.  I respect his commitment to go down enjoying himself, and I honestly wish that I was capable of mustering that much energy in a lost cause.  There are a couple of line-readings that are absolutely fantastic when they have no business being anything more than drek (particularly his, "Yeah.  Black, French, alcoholic priest, kind of a dick.  Why, do you know him?" when asked about another character, which rivals some of Julianne Moore's best stylized dialogue deliveries in "The Big Lebowski").  If you're going to see this movie, Cage is the sole reason to do so.

There's not much reason to delve into the plot (typical "save the kid from the evil religious boogeyman" nonsense), or much of anything else.  When things weren't getting shot or blown up, "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" was boring.  Boring as Hell, you might even say.  That was at least half of the film, and even at it's modest run time, there was still way too much of the trademark Neveldine/Taylor video-game inspired "reach the checkpoint" storytelling going on, and not nearly enough actual character development.  I mean, if you're going to make a whole movie about a biker with a flaming head having to save some kid from the Devil, at least try to make me care about any of the characters.  Start with one, and work from there.  If a filmmaker can't manage that, at least blow some more shit up.

1.5 / 5 - Theatre

Drive Angry - 2011

"Drive Angry" - 2011
Dir. by Patrick Lussier - 1 hr. 44 min.

When I saw the trailer for "Drive Angry," I was hoping that it was actually the trailer for "Ghost Rider 2."  No such luck, though.  I have a sneaking suspicion that GR2 will have a hard time being as entertaining as DA was.

I'm not going to tell you that "Drive Angry" is a good movie, by any stretch of the imagination.  Most of it's appeal comes from the fact that it doesn't aspire to that at all, and that the filmmakers are willing to stretch it's R rating to the breaking point.  Here's what you're guaranteed (and what you'll actually get, as well); a parade of muscle cars, multiple shoot-outs, things blowing up, blatant nudity, devil-worshipers, and Nicolas Cage going full-on nutso as only he can.  Here's two things I wasn't expecting: William Fichtner going toe-to-toe with Cage's weirdness in his "The Accountant" character, and Billy Burke's "Jonah King" tearing things up as the head of a cult.  It takes a certain kind of actor to be able to pull off using a femur bone as a walking stick while strutting around in leather pants and a red satin shirt, unbuttoned to your navel, and Burke is just that man.  By contrast, The Accountant is a sharp-dressed man, sent to retrieve Cage's John Milton (who has escaped from Hell to right a wrong).  I could watch an entire movie devoted just to The Accountant.

One note about the the 3D/2D stuff - I still haven't seen any movie in 3D.  The signature shot of these movies seem to be the "stuff flying at the camera" shot.  I'm starting to get a little tired of that (it feels like blatant pandering), and "Drive Angry" seemed to lean more heavily on that gimmicky shot than other movies I've seen.  I don't hold it against the movie, since it's not "Citizen Kane" to begin with, but I think that it's going to be one of those visual tics that absolutely pegs when the film was made (like when you hear a DJ scratching on a rock song - that means it was made between 1997 and 1999 nearly without exception).  Here's hoping that filmmakers in general get over this gimmick shot and learn to use the technology with a little more subtlety.

When I rate a movie, I use 3/5 as the point where I'd re-watch something.  Below that, and I'd generally not want to watch something again.  But the dilemma here is that this certainly wasn't a good movie, but I'd totally watch it again.  Maybe part of that is having just seen "Sucker Punch," and you know you're in rough shape when your movie makes "Drive Angry" look good, but DA came off like a character-driven indie movie in comparison.  Even giving your characters basic motivations for their actions makes such a difference in action-oriented material.

2.5 / 5 - Theatre (2D)