P.S. I have to agree about Spawn. Jesus, that one was awful.

C'mon, how could anyone not think this movie ain't gonna be good?

This line sums up Hollywood's attitude to every property they grab - it's just property. Just opening weekend $ to fund execs' mansions and mistresses.

We as film audiences deserve better.

And never underestimate the power of the 'mute' button.

If you're going to give me comics, give me them stupid.

How can people pay so much to go the theater to see Sci-Fi channel quality crapola? Why do audiences let this shit slide?

At least they'll masturbate this franchise until they go blind without fucking up a completely new franchise for a while.

If making crap sequels staves them from making a crappy Moon Knight or Captain Marvel/Shazam - then, fine. Let them waste studio $ on turds.

Oh, supercowbell...there's no friendly welcome here - just jump in and don't take shit from the haterz.

If Ghost Rider was going to be any good, they would not be releasing it without HUGE blitz marketing a week before it opens (you know TF, HP, FF2, heck, even TMNT probably, will get it) or on February 16. The upside is no other major direct competition, but without cranking the media advertising, it's liek the studio gave the film a default 'vote of no confidence."

maybe the film is as "vapid" as Harry says, I wouldn't be shocked. But is anyone?

Fortunately, as the story goes, Yoko (who always carries a portable DVD player for such emergencies) was able to revive him with some Brando dialogue from Donner's "Superman."

EMS techs said Harry's first words upon coming out of his first coma were, "Nic Cage did this to me."

The next time (after being zapped with the defibrillator), Harry was heard to yell, "Please! Don't show me his flaming nutsack!"

He didn't get a refund, but did get a coupon for free nachos (with Rico's cheese sauce) for life.

See, here's the problems with this cocksmoker's argument: 1. How is a poorly made POS film "good entertainment"? Are you that numbed by TV and pop culture that you have no sense of quality control?

2. "Not going in with huge expectations" is COMPLETELY different than "Going in to see a well-made film." Even among popcorn movies, there's good and there's crap.

3. "Go see the film and judge for yourselves." = "Help buttress the MASSIVE opening-weekend treasure chest for the movie company, thereby rewarding them for feeding you shit. Don't listen to people who actually saw the thing."

4. Don't be dictated to...by ANYBODY. Including a piece of shit like Mr. Bullitt. If 70 people say a movie outright sucked, 15 people said it was okay, 10 people said it looks like a rental, and 5 people said it was awesome - you're not being dictated to. You're using your MIND to EVALUATE. You're making a decision for yourself. Just be warned.

5. Ah, the Geekist Bias. I love assclowns like this who think everyone on here is some cut-out pastiche of geek stereotypes. I have a wife, kids, shitty paying desk job, and live in MY OWN HOUSE. My wife (with whom I enjoy MANY sexual relations) is as big a comic book "geek" as I am. Go to a ComicCon, pal - you will see plenty of ladies. It's not all about some grasping-at-straws stereotype/insult.

This post, my friend, is what is called OWNAGE.

See, Mr. Bullitt, I followed your sage advice. Now, it is my duty to report back that this movie blew.

I disagree with Harry that Nic "phoned it in" - Nic was Nic. You either accept that or not.

Frank on the other hand, you sir, are a flaming douchebag left burning on a porch. you made the fatal mistake of all those fuckheads who like to wax machismo online...you pulled the token "get a life and quit bitching cuz its only a movie" and "live in parents basement" bullshit. wow, how original. never heared that one before. if your life is so jam packed with excitment and your such a busy goddamn guy, why bother posting on these boards at all? shouldnt you be out painting the town red and parading around like a douchebag 15 year old in a sideways trucker hat and pre-torn jeans? heres the bottom line...you're a loney, fat fuck loser and have NOTHING better to do than post on these boards and build up your shattered ego while scarfing down pringles. so shut the fuck up and go see another thespian affair, like "Epic Movie" or "Stomp the Yard". i think shit like that will suit your tastes just fine.

But shogun_gunslinger has left a Louisville Slugger-sized dent in FB's underdeveloped frontal lobe. I approve.

and Oz your welcome and now we can be all BFF

same goes for Doc sin. thanks for the props, yo!

Make a sub-site called "Harry and the Humptersons" and posts these reviews there. I dont care that you still have comic books. I dont care that your finace didn't see the movie. I dont care that you fell head-over-asshole in love with a pretty silly comic book franchise. I care about whether the movie is worth a ten dollar ticket. No more, no less.

Ps: everyone knows when you're using 'writer's lisence' to make crap up. 'Complete run' my Aunt Bertha. I see your complete run of Ghost Rider and raise you my complete runs of Sgt. Rock and The Unknown Soldier. All i need now is a reference to a chick, and i can be The Man.

I don't want this to be high art or meaningful cinema. I wanted something fun to enjoy. HOW CAN SOMEONE HAVE FUN AND ENJOY THE FILM EQUIVALENT OF PASSING AN EASTER ISLAND HEAD????

There is good pulpiness and bad pulpiness. There is good popcorn movie and there is bad.

This was BAD.

Don't get me wrong. Don't go in expecting a *great* comic movie like Spiderman 2. But it's worth watching on the big screen.

Gang, how exactly did this movie divert from the source material? Those of you complaining -- have you read any of the comics? Sure they were peppered with a few inspired moments, but they were all camp for the most part. Again, no big GR fan here, but the source material rarely rose above two dimensions. Deadman was the one that was heavy on the drama at the time. Meanwhile, GR was about as deep as Tomb of Dracula. Remember that this was a time when a jive talkin' Luke Cage wasn't a joke and Paste Pot Pete and the Wrecking Crew were taken seriously.

Which brings me to this movie. What exactly did you expect from MSJ? Divorce yourself from geek fandom and consider for a moment how this guy had to convincingly sell this character to general audiences. Sure, I would have preferred to take this character down the R-rated path that Blade took. But I'm a comic geek. The same would have been much more of a gamble for GR given the cartoonish look of the character. Hence, there was only one other way to bring this character to the screen and it was the tongue-in-cheek, this side of camp approach that we got. It can make a property fall flat, but for this particular film, the humor wasn't heavy handed, nor was it relentless. In fact, I found it to be more subdued than the TB had led me to believe (e.g. the "How am I driving?" bumper sticker on the semi). And as I mentioned earlier, the source material was hardly multilayered and textured itself.

Harry, you say that you want to introduce your children to your comic collection one day. Some of us are introducing our children to these characters right now. I for one am elated that the material is being softened enough to share the movie experience with them. I still can't watch Blade with my daughter, but I can take her to see this and FF. Like the comics themselves, these movies should also be as much fun as the source material.

Harry, you complain about Cage seeing a skull in reflection instead his own face. As if that was intentionally placed there just for us. "SLAP, SLAP, SLAP." Really? Then how do you feel about Spidey in symbiote garb hanging upside down along a reflective building as his red and blue uniform is reflected back? Does Raimi commit the same crime as MSJ in at least this one instance, or is it simply okay for Raimi to do it and no one else?

Harry, you complain about the origin segment with young Blaze -- I guess perhaps it resonated with me on a different level than you. Frankly, I'm amazed at how much was portrayed in those scenes with hardly any dialog. To you, the senior Blaze looked like "a good father, a fun father." Really? The first we hear from the guy is his chiding of Johnny's showboating in front of Roxanne. When next we see him, he's passed out with a bottle of Jim Beam. If you get hammered in front of your underage child, chances are you ain't much of a fun dad. Did you see what Johnny took off the guy before he read the cancer letter? A box of cigarettes, the stuff that's killing him. And did you read anything at all into that scrapbook? It had pictures of his mother who is not present in the film. Perhaps the split was not an amicable one? Plus, the scrapbooks speaks about a bright future for the father and son pair, a future that ultimately led to a career in a poorly financed carnival. And finally, I have a 15-year old son myself. Trust me, at that age most of them could care less whether you're breathing. They can be so detached and self-absorbed, no matter how much of a good father, a fun father you try to be.

None of this means I didn't have my issues with this movie. How is it Blaze remains injured by a switchblade in human form, yet is unscathed after taking a full-bodied barrage of bullets? The bad guys lacked substance (just like the comic villains). Blaze runs into Slade way too conveniently. The burning lizard in the desert was a groaner. The "ghost rider gun" was ridiculous. I also didn't like how they only scratched the surface that Blaze is host to a sentient demon. And the rapid change back and forth from flesh to bone at the end of the movie flat out sucked, but I blame the actor's ego for that. We even get that in the Spidey films, where not a single passenger on an elevated train has a camera cell phone.

Bottom line -- if you go in expecting to have fun, you'll have it. If you're expecting Citizen Kane, you won't find it. But then, you shouldn't be going into a movie like GR expecting a magnum opus anyhow.

Wasn't much of an X-Men fan, but I have a full run from the early 80s through the early 90s and entire runs of Excalibur and X-Factor among other spin-offs. As for the movies, all three were alright in and of themselves, but I absolutely hated their comic adaptations. They weren't the X-Men. They were Knifey-Boy and his Mostly Mundane Friends. The faithful approach given to Ghost Rider blew away anyone portrayed in the X-Men except for Magneto somewhat, who was still played by a thin, frail, old man.

As you can see, I don't quite fit the standard you painted with the broad brush. Please feel free to Google the site and my handle to judge for yourself if I'm lying.

Lookit, we finally got a subdued Cage. And he didn't keep doing jazz hands! Well, he pointed a lot though. I give you that...

We saw that in GR. Of course, because the character already looks ridiculous to general audiences. Riding up alongside a building isn't much more of a stretch, nor is lassoing a helicopter. Both which happened in the comics.

As I wrote earlier, Blade had the luxury of going with the dark, horroresque, rated-R route. Vampire flicks are often rated R and can even carry a movie all on their own without the inclusion of a superhero. To general audiences, he's just a foil to the vamps.

But there's no getting around a guy with a burning skull and a leather fetish. It was a business decision to go lighter and have fun with the character in order to capture a wider audience. And, heck... they actually adapted the character quite faithfully and well beyond my expectations, which says much given how adaptations go, especially comic adaptations.

On the other hand, I hear you loud and clear on the missed opportunity for a clothesline.

"And for once, I would have liked to see a superhero movie without a pointless love interest." So long as women outnumber men and so long as men pine for women, you will never get your wish. Again, just like the source material.

"Maybe they could use the extra screen time for a tiny bit of character development." We disagree. I saw hella character development.

"I bet this would have worked better as a tv series" Now, here I agree with you! Given the pseudo werewolf premise and Blaze's acceptance and indulging in his power despite toying with the fact that he is indeed a host to a demon, that sure could have worked. But we got what we got and what we got wasn't Punisher 04, Man-Thing, Blade 3, or the X-Men series.

YOU'RE ALL WRONG!

Why you ask? Oh so easy to answer, and here we go:

Ghost Rider gunned the Marvel / Sony marketing engine for No. 1 as the biggest Presidents Day Weekend opening ever by a big margin. It sped to a whopping $44.5 million for Fri-Sat-Sun and an expected $51 mil for the four-day holiday. Even though critics were lukewarm at best about the action film based on the popular Marvel comic book, it beat previous record holder 50 First Dates ($45.1 mil for the four-day holiday). Ghost Rider is the biggest film opening so far in 2007 -- and Nicolas Cage's biggest since 2003's National Treasure because he's been in a slump at the box office. Audience breakdown for the film is 62% male and 38% female with 55% under age 25 and 45% are age 25 and older.

See? Do you? Are you sure? I'm the posted who ALWAYS talks about the money involved behind the movies everyone trashes, but no one seems to get that. Harry must, possibly his boys like Vern and Mori considering Harry and the ilk are "in the biz" as they tell us, but for you fanboys out there, MONEY IS ALL THAT MATTERS.

Money is all that matters to movie studios, actors, producers, directors, toy and video game companies, special effects houses, EVERYBODY JUST CARES ABOUT THE MONEY!

And not Harry's opinion, or your's. And don't overestimate the importance of this site, or the AICN community and its collective malcontentious opinions. You guys all remind me of the new wave crowd during the 80s which trashed glam metal while listening to dusty Joy Division records and tapes. Funny thing is the glam metal bands became millionares while the singer for Joy Division had committed suicide many years earlier. Need I say more?

That type of bad.