Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance: Critic Reviews

Like the first Ghost Rider movie, this one burns plenty of rubber trying to swerve around plot holes and thinly written characters.

The film, though, has some redeeming qualities, including the presence of Idris Elba as the obligatory good guy, who encourages Johnny to get Danny into the protective custody of a religious order.

Time for this rider to head off into the sunset.

The standards of all involved are so obviously floorboard-high, there's not much to say after the lights come up other than one of Blaze's "one-liners": "So, that happened."

Whether Cage is still paying off castles, appeasing the IRS, or rebuilding his comic book collection, it's clear he's decided, for now, to trade his talent for cold, hard cash.

A goofy, gonzo thrill ride, "Vengeance" is a bad movie sequel so bad it's good - a bad movie that's almost a great bad movie.

What more would one want? Well, actually, quite a bit, but this movie ain't got much more than that. Still, as noisesome entertainments go, it 'brings' that thing we sometimes call 'it.'

Spirit of Vengeance is weighted down for long stretches in the middle, as it starts to treat its own religious hokum plotline with undue seriousness.

Ordinarily I'd be into the idea of seeing Nicolas Cage's face burn, but alas, "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" is not a documentary.

Shot in Romania and Turkey, the scenery is terrific and gives you something to watch other than this confusing mess. Johnny Blaze, you're just a candle in the wind, mate.

An aggressively mediocre improvement on the first film.

This is a boring movie. The over-the-top outlandishness can't disguise that the whole 95 minutes represent one big snooze-fest.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance nudges its obscure hero's mythology forward a bit without seeming to care much how it gets there.

One look at the dreadful mess that is Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance will turn your whisper into a primal Cage scream: MAKE THIS MOVIE STOP!

Like a laboratory experiment on how often a movie can spin from bad to good and back again.

Only a marginal improvement over the leaden first film, with Idris Elba providing a number of the film's few bright spots.

All things being equal, I would rather have seen Crank 3D.

Campy humor and excellent visual effects help star and ever perplexing Nicholas Cage, who once won an Oscar.

"The prophecy says the ritual will take place ..." tells you that this movie was entirely dictated by location. The ritual could take place in the middle of Times Square and it would still end up looking like it was shot in an anonymous Romanian nightclub

A goofy, gonzo thrill ride, Vengeance is a bad movie sequel so bad it's good -- a bad movie that's almost a great bad movie.

Beyond the action there isn't much going on. It has a dud plot that attempts to reboot the story of the character. Cage revels in his own insanity and you have to wonder if the guy gives a crap anymore.

An unwanted sequel to one of the worst comic book films ever made blasts onto the screen with such assaultive energy that memories of its predecessor are incinerated from your brain.

Astonishing effects, brilliant production design, great locations, relentless pace and some wry lines well delivered give the film excellent entertainment value

Although Spirit of Vengeance never reaches the madcap heights of Neveldine/Taylor's unhinged Crank, it's an inventive, wonderfully weird, and surprisingly focused one-shot comic-book adventure.

Every action scene serves as an oasis, sparsely scattered in the desert of B-movie dullness.