Superhero movie series get rebooted all the time, but they don't often get rebooted five years after the first and only film. It's even rarer for the same actor to play the protagonist in the both films.
While Nicolas Cage still plays Johnny Blaze, "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" has no continuity with the 2007 Marvel flick and even contradicts the titular character's origin story from the first film.
The only aspect it keeps is that stunt motorcyclist Johnny Blaze makes a deal with the devil to save his father's life. As a consequence, he transforms into the hotheaded bounty hunter of Satan in the presence of evil.
This is a good thing, as the first movie is absolutely terrible and universally reviled. Unfortunately, "Spirit of Vengeance" is also absolutely terrible and universally reviled.
However, it's a Nicolas Cage movie. While other actors phone in performances, Cage overacts everything and thus makes otherwise awful or boring movies fun. One scene consists entirely of a close up shot of Cage making silly faces and yelling while cheesy special effects distort his face. This scene is second only to him threatening a man by yelling "It's coming out, he's scraping at the door! He's scraping at the door!" while trying to not transform into The Rider.
While the fight scenes are boring due to the Ghost Rider's invulnerability and his chain, which instantly kills anyone it touches, — except when the plot dictates that it merely restrains them— they are dumb enough to be entertaining. Multiple missiles are shot at the Ghost Rider and neither The Rider nor his alter ego takes any actual damage. This is despite the fact that early in the movie, The Rider takes a shotgun blast to the chest, causing Johnny to be hospitalized.
This is thrown in with special effects widely varied in quality. Ghost Rider's flaming skull of looks good, but later in the movie a simple driving sequence resembles something from the 50's with an obviously disconnected background.
The plot is even worse, focusing on Johnny Blaze trying to save the son of Satan from being used as his father's new vessel. Satan makes a very unthreatening villain, as he never does anything directly and appears as if he has suffered a stroke in a lame attempt to show his deteriorating body.
It stays fun though because Johnny is traveling with the boy's mother who he calls "Satan's baby momma" and it has enough amusingly dumb moments to distract from the predictable plot.
Later in the film, Satan gives one of his minions the power of decay, causing him to begin to overact every line and giving him the ability to degrade anything he touches, except Twinkies.
Idris Elba is also in the film, playing a monk who guides Johnny on his quest. His accent has a nasty habit of changing midscene, so it's not very clear where he's supposed to be from originally.
However, the movie isn't all fun and bad acting, there are many dull spots of boring sequences and lackluster acting. Much of the traveling is boring and due to The Rider's inability to suffer any permanent damage and Cage just isn't given enough scenes where he can cut loose and act insane.
The movie also straddles the line of not taking itself seriously enough to accidentally funny, while taking itself seriously enough that the intentional cheese falls flat.
However, can those who enjoy bad Nicolas Cage movies (is that redundant?) have fun with this one?
As Cage says at the end of the movie: "Yes. Hell yes."
