Ghost Rider's Sophomore Slump

So I’m not sure where to start on this review of Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. Back in 2007 when I saw the first Ghost Rider, I liked it, it was a fun movie, the visual effects were pretty good, character development was pretty solid, and there was a cohesive story from beginning to end of the movie, in my opinion. However after seeing the sequel at an advanced screening last night, the second one pales in comparison to the first.

Let’s talk about what I did like; I thought the action sequences and visual effects were great. But that’s as far as it goes.

There were times during the movie when I thought I was on a bad acid trip, or at the very least the Scarecrow had poisoned me with his gas: the montage of random clips, awkward flashback scenes, and Johnny Blaze riding down the street on his motorcycle laughing hysterically was downright weird. I felt the script completely lacked any sort of cohesive story, characters just appeared and disappeared at different times, the writer’s attempt to put jokes in at random times sometimes worked, but most of the time did not. I’m not sure if it was because of the script or not, but I felt Cage didn’t take the film seriously and the fight with his inner demon was poorly played out, it was over the top for most of the film (but then again Cage can be pretty over the top, ala Face Off).

I could go on about more specifics, but I’d be getting into spoiler material then. Overall the film gets 1 out of 5 stars from me.