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GHOST RIDER

 ABOUT THE MOVIE

Genre: Comics/Action/Thriller
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Wes Bentley, Sam Elliott
Director: Mark Steven Johnson
Rating: PG (Some Disturbing Scenes)
Year Made: 2007

 

 


 SPECIAL FEATURES

DISC ONE
- Never-Before-Seen Footage
- Commentary with Producer Gary Foster
- Commentary with Writer/Director Mark Steven Johnson and Visual Effects Supervisor Kevin Mack

DISC TWO
- 3 Making of Documentaries: Spirit of Vengeance, Spirit of Adventure, Spirit of Execution
- Sin & Salvation: Featurettes Chronicling 40 Years of Ghost Rider Comic Book History
- Animatics


 TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Languages: English/Thai
Subtitles: English/Chinese/Korean/Thai
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1 Widescreen
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
Running Time: 2 hrs 3 mins
Region Code: 3
Distributor: Origin Entertainment

 

 

SYNOPSIS:   

Johnny Blaze was only a teenaged stunt biker when he sold his soul to the devil - a misguided attempt to save his father's life that destroyed his own. Years later, Johnny is a world-renowned daredevil by day, but at night, he becomes the Ghost Rider of Marvel Comics legend. The devil's bounty hunter, he is charged with finding evil souls on earth and bringing them to hell. But when a twist of fate brings Johnny's long-lost love back into his life, Johnny realizes he just might have a second chance at happiness - if he can beat the devil and win back his soul. To do so he'll have to defeat Blackheart, the devil's nemesis and wayward son, whose plot to take over his father's realm will bring hell on earth - unless Ghost Rider can stop him.

MOVIE REVIEW

It took years to bring Marvel’s Ghost Rider to the production line and also director Mark Steven Johnson’s (MSJ) countless rewrites before the final movie is materialized on the big screen earlier this year.

I’m not a close follower of comic books for one so I can’t really comment if MSJ did a good job in adapting the story from the comics. I just pretty much have a rough sketch of a motorcyclist turning into a flaming skull head during nightfall.

Basically, the plotting is simple. A young man, Johnny Blaze (who will eventually grown up to be Nicolas Cage) has to trade his soul to save his dying father not knowing he will turn into the Ghost Rider collecting lost souls for the devil. If this is not sticky enough, Blaze still has to deal with the son of Satan who has a wicked agenda of his own (he’s the son of the devil remember).

There is no mythical strings attached nor is there any religious background to the whole story. That is unless you consider the fictional origin started way back when a cowboy ran away with the devil’s contract worth 1000 souls. The flaming skull is just a good excuse for the geeks to come up with a super-cool software to accentuate and portray the realistically rendered flames. And of course, the biggest winner has to be none other than Nicolas Cage. An avid fan of the Ghost Rider comics in real-life, landing the lead role gives him the chance to put on the cheesiest performance of his career and getting a fat pay cheque at the same time.

Playing a motorcyclist stuntman? Cool. A motorcyclist turning into a flaming skull riding a burning Captain America bike? That’s cool too. Romancing the delicious Eva Mendes? That’s way too cool! We are pretty sure Eva is pitch perfect as the “damsel-in-distress” as we can’t figure out why she’s here other than the mentioned factor.

Peter Fonda plays Mephistopheles aka the Devil but unfortunately his limited screentime leaves his character a mere cameo, pouting some forgettable lines whenever he appears. Probably the most miscast role has to go to Wes Bentley (touted to be the next big thing after his role in “American Beauty”) who played the Son of Satan. Bentley looks the least sinister and come across like a teenage rebellious brat. His bunch of demonic friends didn’t fare as well either. Sam Elliot fares much better as the mysterious cemetery caretaker but the smart audience will know who he’s actually is.

Perhaps the greatest misstep in “Ghost Rider” is MSJ’s treatment of the whole storyline. I got to admit he did a marvelous job setting up the character and story of Johnny Blaze. But as compared to much-lauded comic adaptations such as “Batman Begins” and “Spider-man”, “Ghost Rider” lacks the empathy needed for the audience to feel for him. Yes, he is a tortured soul all right but apparently we just can’t feel for Blaze or the people around him. The story on the whole, seems flat and without much ups and downs to jolt your senses.

One thing that MSJ particularly did exceptional well as compared to his previous comic adaptation, “Daredevil” is the action sequences and flaming effects. One standup sequence has the police chasing Ghost Rider to a bridge and the creatively usage of camera angles to capture the flaming guy on wheels. The CGI fire is practically faultless and deserves a technical nomination award for it.

This 123-minutes DVD is the extended cut of the original movie. 10-minutes of additional footage focused more on the characters buildup so don’t ransack the disc for more burning action pieces. Although I personally feel the flaming effects if totaled up are more than sufficient enough to grill 200 burgers at least. So if you are not a person who will pick on bad acting and a non-thinking script then “Ghost Rider” is the perfect title to hitch a ride in the weekend.

(Somehow I stopped my review at 666 words, not taking this sentence into account…spooky)

SPECIAL FEATURES :

This extended cut DVD consists of 2 discs. Disc one contains 2 commentary tracks, one by Producer Gary Foster and the second, Director MSJ and his visual effects supervisor Kevin Mack. The first track has far more interesting snippets as shared by the producer. Surprisingly, he’s quite an engaging talker. If you just wish to go through one track, opt for this instead. The second track by MSJ and Kevin Mack consists of more typical PR stuff and some additional information, thoughts behind the making. Of course and lastly, this disc stores the extended cut of the film. Take note you can’t view the additional footage separately though.
Lastly, some trailers from Sony's upcoming releases to round up Disc One.

Disc Two has 3 making of documentaries, first up is the “Spirit of Vengeance” which touches on the cast and crew interview, behind-the-scenes during the shoot which took place in Sydney back in 2005. “Spirit of Adventure” shows you the hard work taken to custom-make the motorcycle and the costumes, stunts etc. The last, “Spirit of Execution” focus on the post-production, which includes foley, sound mix and visual effects. These are pretty good features which showed a lot of raw footage and actual scenes from the shooting. Altogether, it runs at an approximate length of 80 minutes and worthy of your time.

Next it’s a pretty long segment called “Sin & Salvation: Featurettes Chronicling 40 Years of Ghost Rider Comic Book History” which has a rough duration of 50 minutes. If you are a newbie to the comics, I suggest you jump straight to this feature before embarking on the movie. There are interviews with the writers and artists in addition to artworks from the past comics which illustrate Ghost Rider’s origins from the 70s to 2000s.

In "Animatics", visual effects in their rough, unfinished form are shown.

AUDIO/VISUAL:

This is absolutely one of the best transfer ever seen on DVD this year. Dark and bluish colours dominated the movie throughout but the colour reproduction is highly detailed and rich. Images are sharp and watch out for the flaming sequences, it’s definitely stunning and you might need a pair of Ray-ban just in case.

Presented in both English Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS, the sound is so clear that you can hear every crackling sizzling flame, Christopher Young’s score and the chessy dialogue. Crank up the system during the action sequences and hear the motorcycle roar!

PARTING THOUGHTS:

“Ghost Rider” is not exactly one of the best comic adaptations around. But it easily beat MSJ’s “Daredevil” and a couple less worthy titles liked “Elecktra”. Looks liked MSJ is getting better and better. With top-notch visual effects and action spectacles, this 2-Disc edition is the perfect getaway and one collection worthy of your home theater system. That shimmering DVD cover helps too.

MOVIE RATING:



DVD RATING :

Review by Linus Tee

 
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This review is made possible with the kind support from Origin Entertainment

 


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