Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

Ghost Rider has never interested me as a character.  Yes, his flaming skull looks pretty cool, but that's where the intrigue ends for me.  When Ghost Rider was released in theaters back in 2007, I thought it looked terrible, so I never watched it.  Despite some harsh reviews, the movie managed to make over $200 million worldwide.  You would think a sequel would be a no-brainer --- and it is, no matter how dumb the first film looked --- but Columbia Pictures was hesitant.  They ended up giving the go-ahead, but only after the budget had been cut to less than half of the first movie.  Normally, I would take that as a sign to stay the hell away from Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.  But then I noticed that Neveldine/Taylor were directing.  The directors of Crank and Nic Cage, working together at last?  That is a recipe for some serious Lefty Gold.

...and the flamethrower urine scene clinched it.  Let's get Ghost Ridden!  Wait...that came out wrong...

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance does not, in fact, begin with the title character.  Instead, Moreau (Idris Elba) has arrived at a monastery to warn the monks of the dangers they face.  The monks are providing shelter to Danny Ketch (Fergus Riordan) and his mother, Nadya (Violante Placido --- a wonderful action movie name).  Well, they were.  Some bad dudes showed up and killed the monks; though Danny and Nadya escaped, Moreau knows that they will be caught before the solstice, unless something drastic is done.  Naturally, his first thoughts went to the Ghost Rider.

Ghost Rider: when "drastic" isn't drastic enough

Moreau tracks down Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage) and offers to have his priest buddies remove the Ghost Rider curse from Blaze if he manages to keep Danny and Nadya safe.  What's the deal with them?  Well, the devil (Ciarán Hinds) wants Danny for some nefarious purpose.  Do you need more of a reason than that?  It really shouldn't matter, as long as it gives us an excuse to see Ghost Rider puking metal on a bad guy.

Flaming pee is great, but molten puke is almost as good

The acting in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is about what you should expect from the people behind this movie.  Nic Cage is predictably ridiculous, so your enjoyment will rely heavily on how much Crayzee Cage you can handle.  I thought he was actually fairly solid, balancing some lightweight angst with unintentionally funny scenes where he is fighting to keep the Rider from taking over his body.

I wish this shot made the final cut

Was he actually good?  God, no.  He was suitably silly enough for the script; there is a big difference.  Violante Placido doesn't really do much.  She whines about her son and wonders why bad things happen to characters who have the devil's baby.  In other words, her character is in the film to add a pair of boobs to the cast, and in that, she succeeded.

...AND booze?  Double success!

Idris Elba was okay.  He handled a French accent well enough, and his character's love of wine added some cute moments.  Little Fergus Riordan was decent as a child actor, which can be translated as "he wasn't irritating."  Ciarán Hinds was a solid choice to play the villain, but I would have liked to see him be more obviously bad.  His devil was a pretty sorry-ass lord of darkness.  His lead henchman wasn't any better, either.  Blackout (Johnny Whitworth) starts out as a none-too-terrifying thug, but he is transformed into this:

Johnny Winter?

He now had the power of decay and the ability to do some sort of thing where people can't see him and I guess he moves fast or something.  I didn't quite get that bit, but I caught enough to reconfirm my belief that albinos are too powerful and evil to not register as lethal weapons with the government.  Anthony Head appears at the beginning of the movie and almost immediately dies off-screen.  Rounding out the notable cast is the always peculiar Christopher Lambert, who allegedly underwent several months of sword training to prepare for his role as the guy who fell asleep at the frat party.

It was a very literate fraternity, apparently

Why would Lambert need months of sword training for only a few minutes of screen time?  That's a good question.  A better question, though, is "Why would Lambert need sword training after all those godawful Highlander movies?"

The direction of Neveldine/Taylor fit surprisingly well with the script for Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.  They kept the pace going pretty quickly, and most of the downtime was filled with unintentional humor:

Example: the devil smelling a fart

...or intentional humor, like Ghost Rider pissing flames or enjoying Kajagoogoo.  I don't always like the work of Neveldine/Taylor, but they did about as much as they could to make this movie entertaining, given the script.  Granted, making it "entertaining" doesn't negate the fact that this is a stupid, stupid movie, but at least it doesn't take itself seriously.  The script, though, is pretty wretched.  David S. Goyer wrote the story and co-wrote the script, but he didn't do either very well.  This screenplay is either littered with holes, or the editing process was wretched.  When you consider some of the odder moments in the script --- A punk rocker with a hippie van?  The devil can't get enough followers to fill more than a few rows in a stadium? --- I think it's pretty obvious that the writing is at fault.

Please tell me that the Rider will hunt Goyer down for his sins

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance was never going to be a legitimately good movie.  Never.  It could have been close, if it had been rated R and let these crazy co-directors do whatever random stuff popped into their heads, but this is about as much fun as I can imagine having with a Ghost Rider movie.  They fixed some of the small things from the first movie -- Cage's hair looks real this time and there's a lot less self-pity --- and also had fun with some ridiculously over-the-top additions (like the Ghost Rider construction vehicle).  The special effects looked pretty good, and that's even more impressive, given their slashed budget.  Even when you consider all that, this is still on the lower end of comic movie adaptations, thanks to some uninspired campiness and poor writing.

 ...but that's only if you take this movie seriously.  If you want something to enjoy after a few drinks, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is a solid choice.  It gets a Lefty Gold rating of

The American

It's kind of funny, when you think about it...The American is a mostly European movie.  Sure, that makes it easy to figure out who the titular character is, but it's still a little funny.  Well, it's not very funny, but nothing in this movie will get that funny again, so take the grins where you can, people.

Jack (George Clooney) is apparently spending a holiday in a remote, wooded area in the wintertime with his lady love.  As they take a stroll in the fresh snow, Jack notices a set of footprints in the snow.  He immediately grabs his lady by the hand and rushes to the nearest shelter, provided by some large rocks.  It was just in time, too, as gunshots ricochet off the rocks.  Jack pulls out a gun, which surprises his lover, flanks the shooter and shoots him dead.  He then orders his lady to run back to their cabin and call the police; she takes two steps and Jack shoots her in the back of the head.  Wait...the hero executes his lover?  Interesting.  He then circles around to the nearest road and sneaks up on his assailant's back-up, killing him, too. 

Jack changes his look (he shaves off his beard and cuts his hair) and makes his way to Rome, where he contacts Pavel (Johan Leysen).  Pavel acts as a go-between for Jack and his employers.  They meet, Jack tells his story, and Pavel tells him to go into hiding; Pavel gives Jack a cell phone, a car, and a town to lay low in.  Jack follows his instructions, but caution gets the better of him and he ditches the phone and the car and finds another small town to hide in.  Eventually, Jack contacts Pavel again and is offered a job.  Jack is apparently a custom weapon maker, who dabbles in killing for hire.  His customer, Mathilde (Thekla Reuten), is interested in a gun with the power of a submachine gun and the range of a rifle, but with stealth.  She's not the only new friend Jack makes while in hiding; he also frequents a particular prostitute, Clara (Violante Placido), who likes him enough to see him socially.  Between visits from these two very different women, Jack also notices strange men paying him particular attention in town.  Who is trying to kill Jack, and why?  Why does he do what he does?  Should we hate the player, or just the game?  I won't lie to you; not all of these questions are answered in The American.

This movie feels SO European.  Part of it is the unfamiliar cast, aside from Clooney, but the rest comes from the tone.  There is very little musical score in the movie; most of the sound is ambient.  There is very little dialogue in the film, and there are no monologues or voice-overs to let you know what characters are thinking.  It is very common for several minutes to pass without anything said on screen.  This is a movie that is trying to live up to the title of a thriller --- this movie is about building suspense.  But, like I said before, it is doing so in a European art-house fashion, which means that there is very little action and lots of anticipation.

The acting is good throughout.  George Clooney is surprisingly subdued, but it matches the character well.  I was surprised at just how old Clooney can look with a full beard; it's not because he's gone gray --- the man is a silver fox --- but his "concerned" look causes his forehead to crease, showing enough deep ridges to be favorably compared to a pack of hot dogs.  Seriously, it's like his forehead is ribbed for her pleasure.  It goes away when he smiles, but he's going to look crotchety in his old age, I can tell.

Clooney's future

I liked Violante Placido, and not just because she is apparently very comfortable with nudity; there have been many hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold stories over the years, but it was nice to have one that was pretty independent.  The rest of the supporting cast was adequate, but not bad.  Paolo Bonacelli introduces the concept of Jack's remorse, Thekla Reuten embodies the danger inherent in his lifestyle, and Johan Leysen is dangerously noncommittal.  Little was demanded of these actors, since the story belonged to Jack and how he saw things closing in on him.

Not everyone is going to enjoy director Anton Corbijn's adaptation of the novel A Very Private Gentleman.  Corbijn goes out of his way to show and not tell things, and that leaves the audience with the burden of figuring things out for themselves.  It's very doable, of course, but not everyone likes that much work when they watch a movie.  It was beautifully shot, but the pacing was intentionally slow.  And it's not just a little slow, either --- this is worse than church traffic slow.

I enjoyed a lot of things in this movie.  I appreciated the cinematography, I liked the acting, and it was pretty cool watching Clooney build a gun from basic parts.  I really liked the way that Jack was overly cautious about Clara's affection for him; it was very anti-spy movie for him to get answers first and sex later.  The first scene was completely awesome and some parts of this movie were suitably nerve-wracking, too.  In truth, this movie felt like a proper spy story.  It's intelligent and patient and, when the time comes, full of cat-and-mouse strategy.  I just wish it was more exciting.  As much as I enjoyed the movie, I found my attention wandering.  The film isn't too long, clocking in at just over 100 minutes, but it felt at least half an hour longer.  I hate to be another stupid American viewer, but the movie's pace was glacial.  If you cut out twenty minutes of nothing happening, I would have liked it a lot more.  As it stands, though, I'm going to have to dock it some points for losing my attention, despite a lot of quality work involved.

I would like to state that I reserve the right to come back to this movie at a later date and upgrade that rating.  I may have just been restless tonight.  Regardless, this is a well-made film, even if it is occasionally boring.