Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is very much like finding a piece of shit with a roll of quarters inside: sure there is some value in there but it really isn’t worth what you have to go through to get it.

Directed by Crank directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor,  they bring that same bizarre energy and crazy action shots to bear on Ghost Rider and while there are some really cool moments and awesome looking shots, the tone just doesn’t fit the material. It is a little unclear whether or not this is a sequel or reboot but whichever it is the film finds Nic Cage reprising his role as Johnny Blaze/Ghost Rider as he hides out in Eastern Europe trying to keep himself from changing into the demonic spirit of vengeance. These efforts are stymied when Moreau (Idris Elba), a motorcycle riding warrior monk with affinity for alcohol, approaches him to escort a kid named Danny (Fergues Riordan) who is being chased by Roarke (Ciaran Hines), essentially the devil in a human body, and his henchmen led by Ray Carrigan (Johnny Whitworth) a thug who has previous romantic ties with Danny’s mother (Violante Placido) and who eventually becomes Blackout, a villain with supernatural powers to rival Ghost Rider, to a sacred place where he will be safe. I suppose I should mention, in case you didn’t see the poster above, that Ghost Rider is a motorcycle riding demon with a flaming skull who ruins the shit of evil with chains and a soul damaging Penance Stare.

I really didn’t care much for the first Ghost Rider movie as it seemed to just not really get it in the same way that director Mark Steven Johnson didn’t get Daredevil and between the two I would have to say that I prefer this one but Neveldine and Taylor really don’t get Ghost Rider either. His first appearance in the film has him showing down with a bunch of thugs and when he arrives on scene rather than dispatching them quickly he just stands there by his bike bobbing back and forth a bit like he is listening to an ipod no one else can here and wants to have a little dance. When he finally gets around to fighting guys it is in a weird and sluggish way with him moving like he was the little girl in the Ring or any other Japanese horror movie involving creepy weird moving little kids. The fact that this is one of only three real appearances of the Rider makes it stand out much more awkwardly than it might have otherwise.

Nic Cage is really weird here too. I know that is not a big reveal statement or anything but his performance is wildly uneven and I know he was trying to show how unbalanced Blaze was becoming as he attempts to keep the Rider in check but he really just comes off like a crazy asshole who you can’t really root for. Other performances slide back and forth across the scale from serious to melodrama with no real consistence and while they are not really terrible, they aren’t really all that good either.

The script is equally uneven offering up some genuinely funny and cool moments and then immediately spoiling it with something that sounds like with was written by a third grader who’s been held back three times. The storyline is pretty straight forward. It is a typical chase/road movie but it is wrapped in the pseudo religious trappings that make it fit the property better. Even with as basic a premise as it has there are plot holes big enough for all of the car/motorcycle chases to go through and the internal logic is generally pretty faulty. Conversations that are supposed to be meaningful end up sounding corny and ridiculous and several attempts at humor fall very flat.

Even given the above, the two main problems with the movie is the tone and the general lack of Ghost Rider. To look at the latter first, I have already mentioned that Ghost Rider shows up about three times in the movie if you don’t count a fantasy moment of the Rider pissing fire and when he shows up there isn’t much authenticity to the character. In the comics, Ghost Rider is a demon named Zarathos who takes over Blaze when evil is around and has his own personality and goals. He has dialogue and can interact with other characters in meaningful ways. Here, while the basics are correct, Zarathos is more of a force of nature who will destroy anything it deems evil regardless of the severity of the sinful blemish in question. The only thing he says in this movie are genuinely bad one liners and he only serves to show up and destroy the bad guys and maybe some of the good guys too depending on how often they have jay walked in their lives. He is like a flaming skull version of the incredible Hulk who is generally not self aware but at a critical moment can be brought back to normal by the eyes of the woman his alter ego loves. And all that would be fine if that is how Ghost Rider as a character actually was but it is not.

The tone follows suit in that the bizarre behavior and quirkiness would have been fine with another character but it just doesn’t work out here. I honestly think they were trying to pull off Drive Angry again which did this sort of thing FAR more successfully. If they wanted to make that kind of movie then they really should have gotten a more appropriate character to headline it because Ghost Rider doesn’t fit and feels very shoehorned here.

Now all of those things above could be made better if the action scenes could distract us from it and for the most part they do. Unfortunately there is just not enough of it to really distract too much. The shots that the directors pull off are pretty incredible and they use the camera in a genuinely interesting way that makes things look pretty awesome. The driving scenes in particular were exciting to watch as the camera stays close to the ground and zooms around the action in a way that by all rights should have killed the directors while they got it (behind the scenes docs show the directors getting into roller blades and skating along side the driving while holding the camera). These moments are truly impressive and the fairly good 3D (post-conversion no less) enhances a lot of these shots. But there just wasn’t enough of this and we are left dealing far too often with an awkward script and uneven bizarro acting and that stuff was just goddamn awful.

Conclusion [5.5 out of 10]

I really wanted to like Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. I dig the comics a lot and the character deserves a good movie. Sadly, this movie is not it. I liked better than the first movie but I have had rectal bleeding that I have liked more than the first one so that isn’t saying a lot. Nicholas Cage, who I like more than I probably should, is really not a great choice for the title character despite his deep and abiding love for comics (His stage name Cage is taken from Power Man Luke Cage…it is too bad he can’t play that character but the industry frowns heavily on blackface). A director who really gets the material would also be nice so we could have a movie with the right tone. I will probably get this on blu ray so I can watch behind the scenes features on how crazy the directors are but I may never actually watch the movie again. I can’t recommend that you watch it a first time either but if you do, there are some cool shots and neat camera work but understand there is very little else of value.