Daredevil/Ghost Rider

Since I’ve been writing reviews so sporadically, I thought that I’d take this opportunity to give our dear readers two, TWO reviews for the price of one! Today I’ll be looking at Mark Steven Johnson’s Ghost Rider, which is currently burning up the box office, and his previous comic book adaptation, Daredevil.

Daredevil was created by Stan Lee and Bill Everett early in the “Marvel Age” of comics. Trial Lawyer Matthew Murdock was blinded at an early age by an accident involving radioactive chemicals (what other kind is there?), which granted him a “radar sense” and dramatically increased his other four senses. Trained by the ninja master Stick, he defends Hell’s Kitchen as Daredevil, The Man Without Fear!
To be polite about it, Johnson’s 2003 film of Daredevil is quite an abortion. Johnson professes to be a big comic book fan, but this movie is plagued by a weak script, numerous character inconsistencies and weak motivations, and quite possibly the worst casting ever unleashed on a Hollywood film. The film begins with a wounded Daredevil, and moves to Daredevil’s origin (tweaked, and not for the better…..more on that later), and then moves back to the present day to explain why he was slumped against the cross on top of a church, bleeding everywhere. Matt Murdock (Ben Affleck….ewwww) and his partner Foggy Nelson (Jon Favreau, in the only good performance in the film) defend the poor and downtrodden in New York. A chance encounter in a coffee shop introduces Matt to Elektra Natchios (Jenifer Garner), daughter of a wealthy businessman in partnership with Wilson Fisk, the “Kingpin” of crime (Michael Clarke Duncan). Natchios wants out of the crime business, and the Kingpin sics assassin Bullseye (Colin Farrell) after her. Daredevil gets caught in the middle, is blamed for the murder of Daddy Natchios by Elektra, and wackiness ensues.
Batman Begins, Superman Returns, and Spider Man 2 have shown us that you can great films out of comic superheroes without taking all sorts of liberties with origins, motivations, etc. But Johnson gives us no evidence that he even really read a Daredevil comic before. First of all, his origin is tampered with so that Murdock suffers his accident by pure chance, instead of his saving an old man in the comics, a selfless act. Also, it is implied that his fighting skills are gained from his radar sense, which “makes the city his playground.” Riiiigghhhtttt. As anybody who’s studied boxing or other martial arts knows, that comes from lots and lots of hard work, not from knowing how to get from Point A to Point B. Second of all, there’s a scene early in the film where Daredevil tracks an acquitted (guilty) rapist, beats the snot out of him, and drops him in front of an oncoming train. This is a marked deviation not only from the character, but the character type. Could you get behind Spider-Man if he dropped a crook off of the Empire State Building? Or Superman if he blew up the head of a bank robber with his heat vision? This same principle applies to fans of the comics, who have seen Daredevil try and stop The Punisher from arbitrarily executing criminals time and time again. Third, he doubts himself throughout the entire film. Not only is this a characteristic the uber-confident Matt Murdock does not possess, it makes Daredevil come across as a whiny loser in the film. Whiny Loser + Blind Man Jumping Off Of Buildings = Does Not Resemble Our Earth Logic.
The casting for Daredevil? Must have been done by a blind man. I had the same problem with all four principals, in that I didn’t believe, or buy a single performance. Ben Affleck is simply the wrong choice for Daredevil. He’s really tall and stuff, sure. But he’s not much of an actor. He cannot convey intensity to save his life, which was vital to this film. A better choice would have been Matt Damon, Guy Pearce, or Ed Norton. Jennifer Garner was an unimpressive choice for Elektra, as she looks about as Greek as Condoleeza Rice. Again, not much of an acto….she can’t do dark or evil to save her life, and that hurts the role. There was a lot of controversy over the casting of Michael Clarke Duncan as the Kingpin, since the Kingpin was very, very white, and…..well, you know the rest. Michael Clarke Duncan is a good actor, and nobody really can convey massiveness onscreen like he can, but that’s not enough. We have a Kingpin who seems to favor brute force over Machievellian manipulation and striking out at his enemies through connections and with influence. As it stands, Duncan turns in a performance as subtle as a cement truck driving through a shopping mall. But perhaps the worst performance of all comes from Colin Farrell, playing the “Lucky Charms” version of cold-blooded assassin Bullseye. As played by Farrell, Bullseye is a manic, cartoonish, extremely goofy assassin, who kills at the drop of a hat, in plain view of people, which again……cement truck in a shopping mall. Even more ridiculous than his demeanor is his “costume”, which consists of a bullseye carved in his forehead, and a jacket that looks like it was leftover from a Meatloaf video. In the comics, Bullseye is like the Hannibal Lecter of the Marvel Universe: Approach with caution. The only reason that one would need to do that to the Bullseye of the film is because he’s liable to annoy you to death.
The nu-metal soundtrack that permeates the score of Daredevil hurts, and ages the film by degrees. Using pop music can be tricky, and in a superhero movie, a traditional orchestral score is best. The cinematography is ok, nothing to write home about. The other big bone I have with the film is that when you have a subject like Daredevil or Batman, a world class fighter, the fight choreography needs to not suck. And please, no CGI to “enhance” the fights.
So what did I like about Daredevil? Well, it was better than Hulk. Jon Favreau was pretty amusing. One thing that Mark Steven Johnson seems to do very, very well is insert scenes which illustrate smart, real-world principles. Take the scene in Daredevil where he returns from patrol. He takes his uniform off to reveal a map of scars, burns, bullet holes, stab wounds, etc. He pops Vicodin in the shower, and painfully pulls a tooth knocked loose out. There aren’t a lot of scenes like that in superhero movies, and more thought like that put into the script would have improved Daredevil substantially.
I can’t give Daredevil anything higher than a -6 out of 22 on the 22 scale, unless we’re talking about the extended, R-rated cut of Daredevil. That cut, which has slightly more depth to the story, gets a -2. Now, how does Ghost Rider stack up?

Ghost Rider is the story of Johnny Blaze, a motorcycle stunt driver who makes a very foolish decision in an attempt to save a loved one, and pays a price for it. Way, way back in Marvel Spotlight #5, Blaze finds out that his foster father Crash Simpson has cancer, and reasons that “there’s only one person that can help me now…….SATAN!” He whips out the Satanic Bible, makes a pentagram on the floor, puts a goat’s skull in it, and summons the devil for a deal that OF COURSE won’t bite him in the ass in any way, shape, or form. He is “cursed” with the power of the Ghost Rider, which he uses to fight evil. While having a cult following, Ghost Rider is for the most part a really cool visual without a ton of depth. The most current Ghost Rider series, written by Daniel Way, is aiming to correct this with a sharp focus on Ghost Rider vs. Lucifer, in a way that’s never been done before. But to be fair to MSJ, GR is nowhere near as developed a character as Daredevil.
The plot of Ghost Rider is a rehash of the origin: Johnny Blaze’s father Barton is diagnosed with cancer, and the young Blaze makes a “deal” with Mephistopheles (Peter Fonda) to save him. Said deal ironically backfires, separating Balze from his girlfriend Roxanne in the process. Blaze hits the road, and we fast forward into present time. The eccentric Johnny Blaze (Nicholas Cage) is a major star on the cycling circuit. He “drinks” jelly beans out of a martini glass, and regards Karen Carpenter with reverence in a pre-show ritual. His assistant Mack (Donal Logue) worries about his increasingly dangerous jumps, and his obsession with the occult. Blaze often asks people “if they believe in second chances.” He runs into Roxanne (Eva Mendes), now a TV reporter, and gets her to agree to have dinner with him. But that night, Lucifer comes calling, Blaze turns into Ghost Rider “the devil’s bounty hunter” for the first time, and is contracted with capturing his son Blackheart (a truly awful Wes Bentley), and wackiness enuses.
For the most part, I enjoyed Ghost Rider. After Daredevil, I definitely wasn’t expecting Shakespeare from MSJ. The movie is well shot, and for the most part, fun to look at. There’s a fairly striking bullet-time shot about halfway in, and the production design is pretty competent. I was actually pleasantly surprised at the creepy ambiance that is present in a lot of the film…..this wasn’t something I thought MSJ would be able to pull off. For better or for worse, the movie is pretty faithful to the source material, which should please hardcore fans of the comic. I mentioned real-world details in the DD review, and one that is rendered nicely is the aftermath of Blaze’s first uncontrolled motorcycle ride through the city on Ghost Rider’s hell-cycle. What do you think a city street should look like after a supernaturally-powered motorcycle goes tearing through it at about 200 mph, on fire? Yeah, it looks a lot like that.
Nicholas Cage’s performance both helps and hurts this movie. Given the odd feel of the film and the source material, there are few actors with Cage’s grasp of the odd that could do justice to it. When Cage pulls this off, as he does in films like Wild at Heart, Leaving Las Vegas, and Dead Fall, the results are very satisfying. When he doesn’t pull it off in a film (Vampire’s Kiss comes to mind…..), he falls flat on his face. What he manages here is something between the two. The very attractive Eva Mendes turns in a workmanlike performance that is adequate. The same can be said for Donal Logue. Peter Fonda as Mephistopheles and Sam Elliot as the mysterious caretaker are really the only actors who understand the material, and act accordingly. Wes Bentley hands us a campy performance that should result in the revocation of his SAG card.
Ghost Rider shares faults with it’s source material: style over substance. The big problem I had with the film is a real lack of dramatic tension. You not only get the impression that Johnny Blaze was mostly tricked into making the deal, but that he never even made up his mind when his signature was “acquired.” This departure from the original origin takes credence away from the idea that he is seeking redemption. Another aspect that adds to this is how powerful Ghost Rider is……every time he fights one of Blackheart’s minions, they get a lump or two in before he completely kicks their asses in. The villains needed to be a much more prominent threat. And while the visual effects were competent, even good, the main character simply didn’t look quite real enough. I’m sure that a skull on fire isn’t easy to render, even with today’s technology, but GR needed to look every bit as good as Gollum, for example. That, and while a lot of the film was legitimately funny, the script needed a once-over to reduce the amount of cheese in the recipe.
All in all, I got what I expected from Ghost Rider: Two hours of simple, escapist entertainment. It is an improvement over Daredevil, but not by much. I give Ghost Rider a 5 out of 22 on the 22 scale, and fear for Garth Ennis’s beloved DC/Vertigo series Preacher, which will be coming to HBO courtesy of MSJ. Gulp.