The deal is simple: a 17-year-old stunt rider signs away his soul to cure his father’s cancer, and the devil keeps his end of the bargain but not the way anyone wanted. Johnny Blaze wakes up to find the disease gone and his father dead anyway, killed by burns from a stunt accident. That is the engine of Ghost Rider, and it is a better engine than the film ever manages to drive.
Trailer, via Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Mark Steven Johnson writes and directs
Ghost Rider is a 2007 American superhero film written and directed by Mark Steven Johnson. It is based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, produced by Columbia Pictures with Marvel Entertainment, Crystal Sky Pictures and Relativity Media, and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing. The film stars Nicolas Cage as Johnny Blaze, the motorcycle stuntman at the center of the bargain.
The premise has real weight. Mephistopheles comes to Johnny in 1986 and offers to cure his father’s cancer in exchange for his soul. The cure works. The father dies the next morning from burns sustained in a stunt accident. Johnny accuses Mephistopheles of causing the death; Mephistopheles says his side of the contract is fulfilled and promises to see Johnny again.
That is a clean, mean piece of storytelling, and it belongs to the film’s first act.
Johnny Blaze sells his soul
In the present, Johnny is a famous motorcycle stuntman. He survives a near-fatal crash after leaping over a field of semi trucks. He runs into his ex-girlfriend Roxanne Simpson, now a news reporter, and talks her into a dinner date.
Then the plot splits. Mephistopheles’ son Blackheart arrives on Earth and recruits the Hidden — three fallen angels bonded to air, earth and water — to hunt the lost contract of San Venganza. Mephistopheles makes Johnny the new Ghost Rider and offers to return his soul if Johnny defeats Blackheart.
Johnny transforms, his flesh burning off his skeleton, and kills the earth angel Gressil. He uses the Penance Stare on a street thug, a power that makes mortals feel all the pain they caused others. The next day he meets the Caretaker, who knows the history and tells him what happened was real and will happen again, especially at night, near an evil soul.
Every one of those beats is a separate movie.
Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes and the cast
Cage plays Johnny Blaze and Ghost Rider. Eva Mendes plays Roxanne Simpson, his childhood love interest and current girlfriend. Sam Elliott plays Carter Slade, credited as the Caretaker, a former Texas Ranger from the 19th century and the first Ghost Rider, also called the Phantom Rider. Elliott narrates the film. Peter Fonda plays Mephistopheles, called Mephisto. Wes Bentley plays Blackheart, also called Legion, the demon son who wants the Contract of San Venganza to unleash Hell on Earth.
Matt Long plays young Johnny Blaze. Raquel Alessi plays young Roxanne. Donal Logue plays Mack, a member of Johnny’s team and his impresario. Brett Cullen plays Barton Blaze, Johnny’s dead father and a former stuntman.
The cast is not the problem. The problem is what the film asks the cast to do.
A contract of a thousand souls
The Contract of San Venganza is a binding note of 1,000 evil souls. In the film’s opening, the demon Mephisto sends his bounty hunter, the Ghost Rider, to retrieve it. The Rider sees that the agreement would give Mephistopheles the power to bring hell to Earth, refuses, and escapes with it.
That opening is the best idea in the movie. A previous Rider who defied the devil is a story, and here it is a prologue.
Here is how the major pieces line up:
- The soul deal — Johnny’s bargain, the strongest material in the film
- The contract — a binding note of 1,000 evil souls
- Blackheart — a villain who wants the contract to unleash Hell on Earth
- The Hidden — three elemental fallen angels
- Roxanne — a reporter and a love interest, doing one job at a time
Ordered that way, the problem is obvious. The film’s best idea sits at the top and its plot sits below it.
Release dates and what came after
Ghost Rider opened in the United States on February 16, 2007. It grossed $229 million worldwide against a $110 million budget. It came to DVD, Blu-ray and UMD on June 12, 2007.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| February 16, 2007 | U.S. theatrical release |
| June 12, 2007 | DVD, Blu-ray and UMD release |
| February 17, 2012 | Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance released |
The sequel brought Cage back as Johnny Blaze. That is the honest measure of this film: it made enough money to earn another one.
The 5.6 verdict
Ghost Rider has a runtime of 114 minutes and genres listed as thriller, action and fantasy. Its tagline is “Long ago he made a deal to save someone he loved.” That tagline describes a better film than the one that follows it, because the deal is the only part of this story that costs anybody anything.
The Penance Stare is the film’s one genuinely good mechanic. A power that forces a person to feel every injury they ever inflicted is a moral idea, not a special effect, and the film treats it as a special effect. It gets one scene with a street thug and then becomes another weapon in a fight.
The transformation is the other good piece. Johnny’s flesh burns off his skeleton. That image is the reason this character exists, and Johnson shoots it like he knows it.
What does not work is the middle. Blackheart wants the contract. Mephistopheles wants Blackheart stopped. Johnny wants his soul back. Three parties, one object.
Sam Elliott is the best thing in the movie, and the film gives him the exposition. Carter Slade was the first Ghost Rider, a Texas Ranger from the 19th century, and Elliott narrates the whole picture. He has the voice for it. He also has the presence to carry a better version of this story, one where the old Rider and the new one actually argue about what the job costs.
They do not. He explains, Johnny listens, and the film moves to the next set piece.
Cage is doing something strange and committed, which is what Cage does. The film around him is not strange enough to match. It is a supernatural action movie with a soul-bargain at its center and a franchise at its edges.
The score is 5.6 of 10. That is the right number. Not a disaster, not a waste of Cage, and not the movie its own opening ten minutes promised.
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