Ghost Rider 3D: Spirit of Vengeance Review

Yesterday I was given a voucher for a free cinema ticket.

Such moments of good fortune are not to be taken lightly. I needed to make sure that the ticket was used to its absolute maximum capacity. I didn’t want to waste it on some crappy badly made movie that’d leave me with a hollow feeling of regret and dissatisfaction.

So I went to see Ghost Rider 3D: Spirit of Vengeance

This may surprise you. Its no secret to anyone who listens to the podcast that I am not a big fan of the first Ghost Rider movie. In fact I’ve repeatedly gone on record as saying that it is the worst movie in the history of the world (actually that’s not true – that particular honour goes to Cutthroat Island).

However by using my free ticket on Ghost Rider 3D I was getting far more than entrance to some stupid movie. Oh yes. I was getting to torment Ian Marshman. And that my friends is something more valuable than any price you’d care to place on it.

For those who don’t know, Ian is a regular listener to the midmoclub podcast. In fact he’s one of our A+ elite level listeners (yup, we rank and grade our listeners). Both Lee and I really appreciate the support, enthusiasm, and encouragement that we’ve received from him over the past few years and the midmoclub is a more vibrant place for his involvement.

Of course that doesn’t stop us taking every single opportunity to burn the little bugger.

And fortunately its petty easy to burn Ian. It seems that when he was a little kid one of the corks hanging down from the brim of his hat must have got jammed really hard in his ear. In all my 10 years of psychiatric nursing I’ve never seen a case of cork related organic brain disfunction quite so tragic. It appears that this childhood accident has left Ian without the ability to differentiate good movies from atrocious ones.

The strange thing is that it only effects his taste in movies. His ability to identify quality in other forms of media, such as podcasts, but he is just simply unable to tell if a movie is worth watch or a huge pile of steaming horse dung.

Sad. Very, very sad.

Ian likes the first Ghost Rider movie. In fact he likes it so much that he’s even changed his Facebook homepage image to an advert for Ghost Rider 3D. He has even said that the new Ghost Rider movie is his most anticipated film of the year.

Madness.

But unfortunately for Ian Ghostrider 3D isn’t actually out yet in Australia. However Ghost rider 3D is actually currently out in England. And I’ve been to see it and he hasn’t. Oh yeah.

I even posted about it on Facebook:

So the big question is, was Ghost Rider 3D: Spirit of Vengeance any good?

No, of course it wasn’t. In fact it was bloody awful. The first Ghost Rider movie felt like the entire thing had been written by a thirteen year old boy. The sequel however felt more like it had been written by a fourteen year old. Or maybe at a push fourteen and a half.

And the really sad thing is that this isn’t even an improvement. At least the thirteen year old boy who wrote the first movie had some sort of integrity. You could tell that he truly believed the bilge he was spewing was awesome, rad, and cool beans daddy-o (that is how thirteen year olds speak these days in case you were interested).

The fourteen year old idiot that wrote Ghost Rider 3D: Spirit of Vengeance however was tuned in enough to realise that there is a certain type of audience that enjoyed the first movie ironically. He could tell they liked the unintentional campy crapness of it. And so he decided to try to replicate that sensibility in the sequel. However the problem is that he didn’t have anywhere near the skills to actually pull that trick off, and as a result the whole film just sunk into a stinky morass of half knowing hammy awfulness.

The only saving grace is Idris Elba, who manages to pull a vaguely charismatic and interesting character out of the wreckage. However his faint awesomeness is far overshadowed by Nicolas Cage’s truly dreadful combination of overacting, woodenness, and fake sincerity – a mixture of traits which up to now I’d actually thought impossible. And as for the Johnny Witworth playing the villain – my shoelaces have more menace than him.

This is not a good film people. Stay away.

No doubt Ian will love it.

Other episodes you might like :

Lee and Dan Review 2012

Five Superhero Movies Worse than Daredevil

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves