Poorly Written Script

[Denny67]

I have to agree with the original poster. The movie was a bad anti-hero cliché. With the exceptions of some LOL moments provided by Cage and some cool FX moments the script and plot even made Sam Elliott look bad. The drop from Tombstone to that was something I did not even know was possible.

I will not even go into the atrocious performances from Peter Fonda and *Wes Bentley (*to think that guy attended Julliard).

Over all it was a lot of eye candy and no main course.

I wanted to like this movie and was not even expecting a whole lot, but it just did not deliver in any way.

I am sure there a lot of people will argue the box office numbers but I would not read too much into that. Let’s face it. There isn’t a whole lot out right now to offer any competition.

 

[BRUTAL]

I agree with everything that Denny67 just said...

 

[DorkyFresh]

Over all it was a lot of eye candy and no main course.

that's EXACTLY how i feel. it seemed like the special effects and the shots of Eva Mendez were more important to MSJ than the action, acting, and story...

 

[crazy sock]

thumbs up to what denny67 said.

 

[The Kid]

Make sure you didn't just download the bootleg, since it had scenes missing.

And here's the epic comicbook film some of you wanted: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM1KcZW3J7w

 

[crazy sock]

now why couldnt ghost rider be an "epic" film. who says it cant or shouldnt of been one? not saying i wanted or expected a "epic" movie out of ghost rider. but what i did want was a good quality film making.just because its a comic film doesnt mean its standards of quality should be lower than any other movie made.

 

[FlameHead]

Make sure you didn't just download the bootleg, since it had scenes missing.

And here's the epic comicbook film some of you wanted: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM1KcZW3J7w

I'm lovin' this so much right now.

 

[Nokio]

Something that really hurt this film was the script. The script had plot-holes, terrible plot structure, an abudance of exposition, cliches, needless characters, and terrible set-up payoff. Truely when reading this someone should of saw something wrong and not just written it off as, "It's being faithful to the source material". That is not an excuse, if something's wrong then fix it. The first 30-40 minutes felt completely forced, why not just cut it out? Everything that was seen in the first 30-40 minutes has been done to death so if you need to go that route, why not use plot structure to make it interesting. It should of started when Johnny was older and the Devil coming back to reclaim the deal.

The script makes absolutely no sense, if this was to happen to someone, and the devil didn't show up for another 20 years, a person would slip into denial and try to forget it happen. And the person would not choose to make his life-profession the profession that killed his dad and ruined his life. Which leaves us with Roxanne, what the ****? Who stays in love with a highschool fling for 10 years, it doesn't make any sense, and reeks of the crappy writing that use to fly in comics. Why is Roxanne in the movie? She serves no real purpose since the love relationship is completely superficial and forced, she simply serves as a crappy plot device for later on. We're also forced to bear the scene we've seen a hundred times, "I Don't believe you, LIAR!" Come on, if someone you really cared about actually told you something that ridiculous, you would not call him a liar, because if he was, he would of given a more believable lie.

Another useless character is Caretaker, all he's used for is to play up the shoddy writing by having a cliche character walk us through this, funny enough they use the same exact techinique in Spawn with Cogliostro. It wouldn't have been so bad, had he actually done something in the end other than ride with Johnny to the climax only to fade into thin air, at least Cog kicked ass at the end of Spawn.

Then MSJ goes on to break the cardinal rule of fantasy writing which is breaking established rules within a world, he doesn't define whether Ghost Rider is a seperate entity or not. He has him have a cut after transforming for Johnny but doesn't explain why he isn't dead from being shot at. He says he only transforms at night but then he can transform in the shadows. Terrible writing which tries to hide behind the crappy excuse of "Following the source material".

I feel you, but the film wasn't awful. Sure MSj writing is mediocre, and I would have loved for GH to have the missing element it lacked, but unfortunatly the box office numbers makes our quips about the film a moot point. My only hope is that SONY is unhappy about the negative reviews and changes some things for the sequel, which it will be one, cause GR is a hit.

 

[cryptic name]

hopefully cage comes back. he made the scenes without GR interesting, i want fonda back too.

 

[javphonic]

Just because its a comic book movie doesn't mean it has to have. Bad-acting,no plot,plot holes,bad fight scenes,bad FX,and no lighting to set mood what so ever.

I second that GR could have been way better especially with the talented cast they had the writers should have put more into it, it didn't flow at all and I'm not a comic book reader and it was dissapointing to me

 

[Hiruu]

Wow...there are SO MANY great screenwriters on this board...I REALLLY wish some of you guys and gals would goto Hollywood to help make Marvel movies better...In fact, in your free time, how about writing a script for a Marvel product and sending it to Avi to get the process jumpstarted!

 

[cryptic name]

all the good marvel properties have been done, and redone.

 

[StylishHokie21]

Something that really hurt this film was the script. The script had plot-holes, terrible plot structure, an abudance of exposition, cliches, needless characters, and terrible set-up payoff. Truely when reading this someone should of saw something wrong and not just written it off as, "It's being faithful to the source material". That is not an excuse, if something's wrong then fix it. The first 30-40 minutes felt completely forced, why not just cut it out? Everything that was seen in the first 30-40 minutes has been done to death so if you need to go that route, why not use plot structure to make it interesting. It should of started when Johnny was older and the Devil coming back to reclaim the deal.

The script makes absolutely no sense, if this was to happen to someone, and the devil didn't show up for another 20 years, a person would slip into denial and try to forget it happen. And the person would not choose to make his life-profession the profession that killed his dad and ruined his life. Which leaves us with Roxanne, what the ****? Who stays in love with a highschool fling for 10 years, it doesn't make any sense, and reeks of the crappy writing that use to fly in comics. Why is Roxanne in the movie? She serves no real purpose since the love relationship is completely superficial and forced, she simply serves as a crappy plot device for later on. We're also forced to bear the scene we've seen a hundred times, "I Don't believe you, LIAR!" Come on, if someone you really cared about actually told you something that ridiculous, you would not call him a liar, because if he was, he would of given a more believable lie.

Another useless character is Caretaker, all he's used for is to play up the shoddy writing by having a cliche character walk us through this, funny enough they use the same exact techinique in Spawn with Cogliostro. It wouldn't have been so bad, had he actually done something in the end other than ride with Johnny to the climax only to fade into thin air, at least Cog kicked ass at the end of Spawn.

Then MSJ goes on to break the cardinal rule of fantasy writing which is breaking established rules within a world, he doesn't define whether Ghost Rider is a seperate entity or not. He has him have a cut after transforming for Johnny but doesn't explain why he isn't dead from being shot at. He says he only transforms at night but then he can transform in the shadows. Terrible writing which tries to hide behind the crappy excuse of "Following the source material".

Agreed! The whole movie was a mess, but Cage wasn't too bad. Movies are meant to entertain, but I felt this didn't. The effects were mediocre at best. I couldn't get past the corny dialogue or lame villains either.

 

[venom892]

While I enjoyed Ghost rider just because of a few scenes but there are alot plotholes and things I would have changed and added.

-It took way too long for him to finally turn into ghost rider.At most it should have taked 20 minutes.I went to see Zarathos not Jonny Blaze

-Speaking of Zarathos he wasn't even mentioned.It should Been Zarathos and Jonny Fighting for control.Not that whole only at night crap.Whenever at whatever time there is evil present zarathos should rise.So if someone is being murdered in front of jonny during the day Zarathos won't come out?

-While the idea of having demons based on the elements is cool they were dissappointing.There should have been two fights invoving them.One when Jonny first becomes Ghost rider where we see all three attack him But since Zarathos hasn't gotten used to the new host and Jonny is completely freaked out he loses and is left for dead.Then one in the city where more comfortable with each other they defeat two on the city streets and he wind guy tries to escape seeing what happened to the other two.Here is where we see the badass riding up the building and see him defeat the wind guy on the roof.

-Blackheart while this is happening should have gone after the contract and we could have seen a nice caretaker/Blackheart fight with blackheart defeating him rather easily.This could have made Blackheart more of a threat showing he can defeat a ghost rider.

-they should have play more with the idea of Blackheart being mephisto's son.It would have been more intersing and given both of them more charater development.

-Jonny then could have found the caretaker and then gone after blackheart.

-Blackheart could have also had alittle more motivation for wanting the
contract.For example maybe he could have wanted the soulsbecause that was the only way to reach his true form and power in this realm{That way We could have seen an awesome transformation scene and seen Blackheart turn into something a little more like the comics.

-Did it bother anyone else that his friend who cared about him the whole movie got killed and Jonny didn't bother to care about nothing except roxanne being scared?For that just cut that charater out.

The plotholes have have already been covered so I'll spare you guys.Also that whole "It's a comic book movie get over it!" excuse is lame.Go see V for vendetta,Batman Begins,X2 and the spider-man movies.I'm sure 300 and even TMNT will be better Comic book movies.

 

[Sugarculted]

ugh. I was so letdown with this movie. I didn't have high expectations of this movie...but I felt that;

Blackheart was lame in the movie.

The aged Johnny Blaze didn't go well with the young version, it was as if when Blaze turned 25 or something, he was hit by a shovel. Sorry Cage, but it was just odd. At least have a younger Cage at the beginning, instead.

The three elements could've worked, as long as they didn't have that lame 'street' look to them. Why didn't they properly fight GR altogether to give him a hard time?

He used the Penance stare on a thug, and on Blackheart. It's just when he used it on Blackheart...I felt letdown.

Even my girlfriend knew the Caretaker was the previous GR. I'd ask her if she could tell who Matt Murdock was, I got in response...Dangerous Dave

I can't be bothered to go on...it was just poorly, poorly written. The GR chase scenes were nice, but could've been longer.

Oh yeah, and his best friend dies...does GR actually do anything to show his anger over this?

 

[CombatRock319]

im not gunna get all po'd just because the script lacked. sometimes ghost rider would be in totall badass mode and then he would crack a terrible joke or something funny would happen. half the point of comedy is timing, if you cant time when to crack the jokes, then dont bother cracking the jokes. the script wasnt a terrible story, i liked the story, it was relatively intracite and unlike movies like FF, wasnt a bashem and smashem movie. it was a cool concept and i thoguht it was cool that they threw both blackheart and mephisto in there (i didnt think they were terrible actors for a superhero movie) look basically what im trying to say here is that this movie is a superhero and the movie industry isnt gunna waste oscar winning scripts and the best actors they can buy on movies about superheroes because audiences dont want the intricate and complex personas of these characters that we do, they just wanna see them throw punches and do cool things with special FX. we shouldnt bash the script, they arent trying to win just your support fellow fanboys, they are trying to gain everybody's applause and even more so, money. if you want a good ghost rider pick up a comic because they can never convert comics to movies the way you all want them too.

 

[CombatRock319]

Oh yeah, and his best friend dies...does GR actually do anything to show his anger over this?

hahahahahahhaa this is so true and it literally bothered me more than anything as i left the movie. the best friend dies and they dont even bother to go like "omg so and so is dead" or whatever. he dies and they dont even mention him FOR THE REST OF THE MOVIE. some friend johnny, some friend...