ourchair
Well-Known Member
Because we Filipinos live 8-16 hours in the future, I was able to see Ghost Rider last night.
It also seems that your Yanqui distributor-men fail to realize we don't have 'opening weekends' we have 'opening Wednesdays' putting us 2-3 days ahead of time. This allows us to sneak into the cinema with videocams so that we can bootleg it onto pirated DVDs to sell in China or something. Piracy prevails.
Anyway, my only real exposure to pre-release information about this film were the trailers, and I have to say it was genuinely good mindless fun. Here's the fast synopsis with SOME, but not ALL the spoilers:
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The movie basically opens up with Caretaker (heretofore known as Undertaker Thunderbolt Ross) telling of the legend of the Ghost Riders --- individuals who have traded their souls to Mephistopheles (heretofore known as Evil Fonda) --- spectral bounty hunters that have existed throughout history.
The last Ghost Rider went on a mission to obtain an ancient scroll of McGuffin significance, but realized that the whole point of a McGuffin is for it to actually make a plot move, so he stole it, ran away from Evil Fonda and he and his really cool looking flaming horse were never heard from again.
Flash forward to the 21st century, where Barton Blaze (played by a poor man's Jon Voight whose name I can't remember) and his son Johnny are a bunch of stunt-cycling carneys. Johnny has goo-goo eyes for Roxanne Simpson (Raquel Alessi) and wants to elope with her, but is also deeply concerned for his father an aging man with no real future except the cancer that's eating away at his lungs.
So when Evil Fonda shows up, Johnny makes The Deal --- his soul in exchange for his father getting his health back. In typical trickster fashion, Barton Blaze dies the very next day when he has a fatal stunt accident. Evil Fonda promises that he will never have family, friends and love and that when the time comes, he will come a calling back.
Fast forward twenty years later and Luke Cage, I mean Nicolas Cage (heretofore known as Blazing Cage) has become a stunt-riding celebrity bigger than his father. He's doing death-defying leaps and sanity-testing stunts that prove he's a bigger daredevil than Ben Affleck. He knows that Evil Fonda has no reason to see that he's harmed, that the devil's watchin over him.
Then a pair of **** that hold a microphone (which happen to be attached to some actress called Eva Mendes) shows up to get an interview from the Blazing Cage. Blazing Cage takes this as a sign, that perhaps the devil will never collect. So he goes and asks Roxanne Titson out on a date.
Predictably enough, Blazing Cage never shows up for his date when Evil Fonda shows up and transforms him into the Ghost Rider. This takes place in a very cool-looking CGI sequence where Nicolas Cage gets Face/Offed.
The Evil Fonda charges him to after his son, a poor man's Blade villain played by Wes Bentley and his badly-dressed posse of goth-inspired cosplayers. See, Bentley is after the Scroll of McGuffin that will grant him the power of 1,000 Evil Souls.
Eventually, Blazing Cage kicks his *** but not after causing massive damage to public works, becoming a fugitive, losing his entire stunt career and embracing his curse through the inspiration of his mentor, Undertaker Thunderbolt Ross --- who is revealed to be a Ghost Rider himself. Not like nobody saw that coming.
There is also a scene with Eva Mendes that is pretty much a rip off of the scene where Hulk shrinks into Banner for Jennifer Connelly in Hulk, except Eva Mendes has better ****.
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All in all, I actually really enjoyed the movie. It was one big dumb fun thrill ride that carried a whole lot more charm than Johnson's previous superhero film, Daredevil.
The one thing that probably justified the development time of this film was the effects. They get away with the absurdity of a flaming skull biker as an entirely CG hero simply because he's not exactly required to act. The fact that the character design has no basis in reality means that the issue of the hyper-real uncanny valley does not exist as it does with say The Hulk or Gollum.
What I hated most about the film was the completely uninspiring plot and villains. Peter Fonda gets the plum role of being Mephisto, which is basically a role that allows an actor to 'play evil' without actually doing anything. The Hidden --- a pack of elemental spirits in the service of evil --- look like concepts that were intended for a Vampire: The Eternal Struggle TCG expansion pack but were rejected for lame art design.
And don't get me started on Wes Bentley? I don't know what kind of career the Plastic Bag Boy from American Beauty is trying to carve for himself, but this is definitely a step down. He looks like one of those characters you'd see in an episode of the Addams Family --- trying so hard to be strange, but deep down is a suburban normal at heart.
There is this one moment where Bentley/Blackheart looks at the camera and has this broad smile on his face after announcing that "I know his (Ghost Rider's) weakness!" and my girlfriend said, "CHOCOLATE!" that had me laughing long after the movie ended.
But on a positive note, there is one scene involving Blaze as Ghost Rider riding off into the desert with Undertaker Thunderbolt Ross, who as I mentioned is also a Ghost Rider, being all flaming skull coolness of his own on a flaming horse. That is one awesome visual, I guarantee you. It made me remember Compound's really supercool idea for Ultimate Ghost Rider that he posted somewhere here.
All in all, a 7 over 10.
It also seems that your Yanqui distributor-men fail to realize we don't have 'opening weekends' we have 'opening Wednesdays' putting us 2-3 days ahead of time. This allows us to sneak into the cinema with videocams so that we can bootleg it onto pirated DVDs to sell in China or something. Piracy prevails.
Anyway, my only real exposure to pre-release information about this film were the trailers, and I have to say it was genuinely good mindless fun. Here's the fast synopsis with SOME, but not ALL the spoilers:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The movie basically opens up with Caretaker (heretofore known as Undertaker Thunderbolt Ross) telling of the legend of the Ghost Riders --- individuals who have traded their souls to Mephistopheles (heretofore known as Evil Fonda) --- spectral bounty hunters that have existed throughout history.
The last Ghost Rider went on a mission to obtain an ancient scroll of McGuffin significance, but realized that the whole point of a McGuffin is for it to actually make a plot move, so he stole it, ran away from Evil Fonda and he and his really cool looking flaming horse were never heard from again.
Flash forward to the 21st century, where Barton Blaze (played by a poor man's Jon Voight whose name I can't remember) and his son Johnny are a bunch of stunt-cycling carneys. Johnny has goo-goo eyes for Roxanne Simpson (Raquel Alessi) and wants to elope with her, but is also deeply concerned for his father an aging man with no real future except the cancer that's eating away at his lungs.
So when Evil Fonda shows up, Johnny makes The Deal --- his soul in exchange for his father getting his health back. In typical trickster fashion, Barton Blaze dies the very next day when he has a fatal stunt accident. Evil Fonda promises that he will never have family, friends and love and that when the time comes, he will come a calling back.
Fast forward twenty years later and Luke Cage, I mean Nicolas Cage (heretofore known as Blazing Cage) has become a stunt-riding celebrity bigger than his father. He's doing death-defying leaps and sanity-testing stunts that prove he's a bigger daredevil than Ben Affleck. He knows that Evil Fonda has no reason to see that he's harmed, that the devil's watchin over him.
Then a pair of **** that hold a microphone (which happen to be attached to some actress called Eva Mendes) shows up to get an interview from the Blazing Cage. Blazing Cage takes this as a sign, that perhaps the devil will never collect. So he goes and asks Roxanne Titson out on a date.
Predictably enough, Blazing Cage never shows up for his date when Evil Fonda shows up and transforms him into the Ghost Rider. This takes place in a very cool-looking CGI sequence where Nicolas Cage gets Face/Offed.
The Evil Fonda charges him to after his son, a poor man's Blade villain played by Wes Bentley and his badly-dressed posse of goth-inspired cosplayers. See, Bentley is after the Scroll of McGuffin that will grant him the power of 1,000 Evil Souls.
Eventually, Blazing Cage kicks his *** but not after causing massive damage to public works, becoming a fugitive, losing his entire stunt career and embracing his curse through the inspiration of his mentor, Undertaker Thunderbolt Ross --- who is revealed to be a Ghost Rider himself. Not like nobody saw that coming.
There is also a scene with Eva Mendes that is pretty much a rip off of the scene where Hulk shrinks into Banner for Jennifer Connelly in Hulk, except Eva Mendes has better ****.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
All in all, I actually really enjoyed the movie. It was one big dumb fun thrill ride that carried a whole lot more charm than Johnson's previous superhero film, Daredevil.
The one thing that probably justified the development time of this film was the effects. They get away with the absurdity of a flaming skull biker as an entirely CG hero simply because he's not exactly required to act. The fact that the character design has no basis in reality means that the issue of the hyper-real uncanny valley does not exist as it does with say The Hulk or Gollum.
What I hated most about the film was the completely uninspiring plot and villains. Peter Fonda gets the plum role of being Mephisto, which is basically a role that allows an actor to 'play evil' without actually doing anything. The Hidden --- a pack of elemental spirits in the service of evil --- look like concepts that were intended for a Vampire: The Eternal Struggle TCG expansion pack but were rejected for lame art design.
And don't get me started on Wes Bentley? I don't know what kind of career the Plastic Bag Boy from American Beauty is trying to carve for himself, but this is definitely a step down. He looks like one of those characters you'd see in an episode of the Addams Family --- trying so hard to be strange, but deep down is a suburban normal at heart.
There is this one moment where Bentley/Blackheart looks at the camera and has this broad smile on his face after announcing that "I know his (Ghost Rider's) weakness!" and my girlfriend said, "CHOCOLATE!" that had me laughing long after the movie ended.
But on a positive note, there is one scene involving Blaze as Ghost Rider riding off into the desert with Undertaker Thunderbolt Ross, who as I mentioned is also a Ghost Rider, being all flaming skull coolness of his own on a flaming horse. That is one awesome visual, I guarantee you. It made me remember Compound's really supercool idea for Ultimate Ghost Rider that he posted somewhere here.
All in all, a 7 over 10.