Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011)

It's pretty much a law of (my) nature that I will watch any movie based on a comic book. It doesn't matter if it's a comic book I've read or am even familiar with. I almost didn't watch the first Ghost Rider movie (this one being number 2), because I always thought that the character of Ghost Rider was really incongruous with the rest of the Marvel universe, plus I always thought that it was essentially a Western just with the main character on a metaphorical horse. Plus, I think one of the comics I read as a kid had GR in front of a circus which may or may not have been aflame, and I don't much go in for the idea of circuses due to their harboring of clowns and their ilk. Throw in that the film stars Nicolas Cage and it was an almost definite pass. But sometimes all the good movies have been watched or at least are on loan to other library patrons and I cave and watch something like Ghost Rider, lured into the creepy old man's house by the promise of special effects candy. And then it turned out to not even be my least favorite Marvel comic-made-into-a-movie. When I found out a sequel had been made, I realized that it was already out on video and here we are a couple of days later and you're reading this.
Even if this hadn't been part of some comic book fetish that I have, I would have watched this. Why? The premise is that the devil walks the earth in human form and has sired a son. On the Winter solstice of the boy's thirteenth year, the devil may perform a ritual to transfer his essence to the boy, gaining a new body, and bringing a new dark age to the earth. But the boy's mother with the help of wine guzzling holy man and a man possessed by the spirit of an insane fallen angel are going to try to rescue the boy and save humanity.
I have a soft spot for stories about angels, devils, fallen angels, etc. I think it comes from a desire to believe in them. Since I was a kid I've been intrigued by the notion of heaven and hell and was always at least a little bit envious of other people who went to the kinds of churches that talked about such things or at least believed in them. It seemed like the Catholics had the most going on, and through syncretism religions like Santeria and Voodoo are closely related. It's kind of like the first literary super heroes and super villains. But, if I delve a bit deeper, it's about my wanting to have faith in something larger than humanity. If I could only believe in angels and miracles performed by saints or conversely devils and their spawn, then maybe, just maybe, I could believe in God. I think I've known since I was six that there was no Santa Claus. Kids who have to spend the holidays between two households who are not on good terms come to these realizations faster I think. I also recall right around this time, maybe a couple of years later, but certainly in the middle of my grade school experience, that God was just Santa Claus for adults, and how come they couldn't see that he was a sham? In my mind then, as now, was the relational analogy that God is to adults as Santa is to kids. It left me not believing in either, nor wanting very much to be an adult. All these decades later, I've gotten past my secret hopes of finding faith in religion, but still hold on to the stories. They are interesting.
Cage does not suck in this movie. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, I know. But the whole Ghost Rider as fallen, insane, angel angle is an interesting twist and Cage played Johnny Blaze likely as good as anyone could have. There is only so much you can do with this kind of character. Violante Placido was as lovely as ever, and I think this is the first English speaking role I've seen her in. At least her character didn't die a horrible death this time out. The supporting cast was good as well, surprising me.
I think it's very interesting that this film was produced by Avi Arad and Stan Lee, and yet only barely shows the word Marvel at the beginning and then again at the end. Clearly not a Marvel Studios/Disney film.
The coolest thing about this movie, aside from nice fire SF/X were the ancient and super secret order of holy men headed by Methodius played by Christopher Lambert, who's character was completely covered with tattoos of sacred scriptures. There are aspects of a story being believed in giving it power in this film that I find interesting and reminiscent of a series like Unwritten. They go hand in hand with the Blaze character believing that Ghost Rider is a demon and then how his life changes when he believes Ghost Rider is a fallen, if insane, angel. Too bad the movie wasn't more about this aspect than about chasing things and blowing things up.
The worst part of this movie was that in this incarnation GR is totally ripping off Spawn. He's pretty much an immortal badass that does bad things to bad people and has these cool looking chains that shoot out following his every whim and desire. The problem is that they didn't just do a Spawn movie. Spawn can basically do what he wants to humans, but the creatures from the underworld and from heaven are a different story. Plus Al Simmons has a family that he still cares about even though he can't be with them. They are a great strength and a great liability to him. GR has no body to equal his power, well he an enemy in Decay (Johnny Whitworth) for a while, but they are not that evenly matched to be interesting. Not to mention that GR doesn't have anything keeping him in check, except for the attempts of his human host, Johnny Blaze. Hmm, Spawn and GR even both have the motorcycle thing going on.
That's what I would really like to see, is a reboot of Spawn. Don't get me wrong, I like the 90s version with Martin Sheen Michael Jai White, but they could relaunch the series with a new actor and over the course of several films really bring the heavenly characters into it as well as the devilish ones. Then, they could make a decent live action version of Witchblade. And then we can start having movies about WildC.A.T.S. or at the very least Grifter and Zealot. Hmm, maybe we could try Spawn as an HBO series? With the current wave of super hero films not yet peaked, it would be nice to have something a little meatier, a little less black and white to watch.
So, bottom line is you want ot know if you should watch this movie. Am I right? Fair enough. It's better than the Blade movies and Punisher movies and pretty much on par with Daredevil and Elektra. That leaves the whole Spider-man and X-men franchises, the Avengers and the related solo effort movies better than it and the Fantastic Four films slightly better than it. Did I leave out any of the Marvel movies?

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance on IMDb