"Dude, that was my skull!"

Ghostrider in my pants

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A few thoughts on Ghost Rider, just in case your bomb detectors haven't already gone off

I got to see it for free last Thursday as a guest of the Indy's critic, and let's just say the price was right. It didn't hurt that I went in with negative expectations, so what little entertainment the movie had was a bonus. Basically we laughed our asses off at how awful it was.

I will say Ghost Rider was better than The Fantastic Four ...  which, I know, is the very definition of damning with faint praise. (Ironically enough, the single best moment of the movie for me was the FF trailer attached to the beginning. As that is now available online, you can watch it now and save yourself 2 hours. No need to thank me.)

Granted, it's not as if I had a lot vested in the character. I only recall ever buying one issue of the comic book, when he went to some nuclear plant soon after Three Mile Island to fight something ... atomic power? Mutant squirrels? Who knows. All I remember is Ghost Rider using the conning tower as a ramp to launch himself at the villain, which, admittedly, was kinda cool -- in 9th grade. However, the fact that Marvel was willing to exploit TMI as a plot point in a second-tier comic book tells you all you need to know about the series.

Clearly I can't recommend anyone pay to see it -- though the script *does* raise some very interesting metaphysical and theological questions:

1) We are told the Ghost Rider is the Devil's "bounty hunter," whose job it is to bring back those souls that have escaped from hell.

Question: Is hell really that leaky? I mean, are so many people slipping out of the eternal flaming pit that you have to hire someone to round them up? Sounds more like an infrastructure problem to me and Mephistopheles would be better off hiring a contractor than a bounty hunter.

2) At no point does any Ghost Rider in the movie actually do what's in their job description. In fact, Mephistopheles ends up using Johnny Blaze to go after his errant evil son, Blackheart, and fight his clique of delinquent elementals/fallen angels who are apparently trying to bump off dear ol' dad and take over the company -- er, Hell.

Question: Now this is definitely a personnel issue. Not only is Satan sending new, inexperienced employees to do work they aren't trained for, GR has to make his own weapons, trick out his own evil bike and steal his own bad-ass clothing. You'd think a minion of darkness would at least get an expense account so he could look the part. Seems more "Dilbert" than "Devil" if you know what I mean.

Followup: And what, the Ultimate Evil is run like some two-bit mob from New Jersey? If Junior gets a hold of some contract before Pops Satan does, he gets to run the biz? I think this was handled much better in season three of The Sopranos.

3) Finally, GR's crusty old cowboy sensei tells him that, since Ghosty didn't sell his soul out of greed but for a "good" reason (to save his father from dying of cancer), that means that God is on his side.

Question: Uh, hello? That is a HUGE oversight and believe you me, the folks down in Legal are going to catch hell for missing THAT little loophole. Come ON people, I think the Devil would have a FEW lawyers in hell that would have caught this before the contracts went out.

Then again maybe not -- for throughout the movie, the Ghost Riders (spoiler alert!: there are more than one) are constantly disobeying Mephistopheles and running off with the office stapler and other supernatural superpowers he bestowed upon them. What boss would put someone under contract they couldn't "fire" (Get it? Fire? Flaming skull? Get it?) Is that any way to run a business? No wonder Hell is going to, umm, hell in a handbasket!

Just sayin'

P.S. -- oh yeah, I like totally lifted the art above from this drop-dead funny site. Elijah Brubaker's "50 Superheroes" is infinitely more entertaining than Ghost Rider.