GHOST RIDER (2007)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*

MYTHICITY: *fair*

FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*


Like most comics-fans I can grind my gears about any number of "incorrect" cinematic portraits of comic-book characters, even knowing that the comic books themselves often differ widely in this or that creator's depiction of a given character's nature.

Marvel Comics' Ghost Rider, however, has one advantage over more well traveled figures like Spider-Man or even Daredevil.  I confess I'm not as familiar with versions of the character seen during the 1990s and afterward as I am with earlier renditions. Nevertheless, nothing I've seen of those later versions dissuades me that Ghost Rider is harder to make "incorrect" because he's such a simple type of monster-hero.  From the early version by Gary Friedrich and Mike Ploog to the chain-wielding "spirit of vengeance," the Rider is pretty simple: he encounters evil and kicks its ass.  The character's experiences with magic, mysticism, Heaven and Hell are rarely if ever developed in terms of their symbolic complexity-- which may be a great part of the Ghost Rider's continuing appeal; that lack of canonical story-baggage that often weighs down characters like Spider-Man.

This may be why the 2007 GHOST RIDER, written/directed by Mark (DAREDEVIL) Steven Johnson, was reasonably profitable despite negative critical reviews.  Though it drew on some of the hero's comics-mythology of the 1990s, Johnson's film remained basically true to the essence of the Friedrich-Ploog original, detailing the struggles of Johnny Blaze (Nicholas Cage), a man who sells himself to the Satan-like Mephisto for a favor.  Mephisto later summons Blaze and transforms into the fiery-headed Ghost Rider.  Blaze is offered the chance to win back his soul if he will defeat a group of demons who have rebelled against Mephisto's authority-- one of whom is Mephisto's own son Blackheart.

Most of the plot is consumed by the Rider's running battles with the demons, though a subplot involves an earlier "Ghost Rider" from the Old West, who was also Mephisto's pawn but who won free by defying the demon-lord.  (For those not in the know, this was a continuity "shout-out" to the fact that Marvel had published a Western "Ghost Rider" prior to the skull-headed protagonist.)  At the climax, thanks to the help of the Western Rider and of his faithful (but not very interesting) girlfriend, this Ghost Rider defeats the rebel demons but also deprives Mephisto of a prize consisting of a contract for a thousand souls. The film ends with Johnny Blaze swearing to use his demonic powers to bedevil the Devil himself.

Johnson's film isn't a bad rendition of the comic-book original, but the hero's running battles with assorted petty demons reduce it to a rather pedestrian collection of supernatural fight-scenes.  Its best moment consists of the two Riders teaming up for the common good, to the accompaniment of the pleasurable (though predicatable) tune "Ghost Riders in the Sky."  All in all, just an average blending of the horror/superhero worlds.