Ghost Rider (2007): Revisiting a Marvel Misfire

Ghost Rider is one of the least-loved Marvel movies. Nicolas Cage’s turn as Johnny Blaze was highly anticipated, but the film fell flat in 2007. Many thought it was a mistake hiring the director of 2002’s Daredevil to helm what ended up being a very mild, family-friendly, PG-13 take on the character. People hated the CGI, as well as the bad guys and the fact that Cage only enters the film after a prologue that seems to last forever. So what went wrong? Plenty, as we’ll discuss in this month’s Marvel Revisited, which is written, narrated and edited by Kier Gomes.

First of all, was Cage the right choice to play Johnny Blaze? Considering all of the action scenes would involve a CGI skull on fire, maybe they didn’t need an A-lister? Cage, at the time, was in his forties and also perhaps a little long in the tooth as the young Johnny Blaze, with many mocking the strange hairpiece he was wearing (although apparently the widely mocked CGI abs were actually his). The supporting cast was stacked, but none of them were showcased at their best. Eva Mendes did kind of a Lois Lane-lite performance as Blaze’s love interest, while the late Peter Fonda hammed it up at the Devil. Wes Bentley performance as Blackheart was mostly despised, although folks liked Sam Elliot as Carter Slade, another iteration of Ghost Rider. In the end, it made enough money to warrant a sequel, but other than Cage, everyone involved in this was replaced. We’ll dig into this Marvel misfire and try to decide if the movie has any redeeming features.

Do you think the 2007 Ghost Rider movie was horrible? Let us know in the comments!