Come on, am I the only one on this board that watched this? Looking at the box office, I probably am.
I thought it was largely a waste of time. In the first film, Nick Cage was sleepwalking through the role, but here he was too amped up. He came off as Cage and not Blaze. The story was one that anyone who has watched End of Days/The Omen and countless other films has seen before, so there was nothing fresh there.
It sucks that Marvel can think of nothing to do with Idris Elba but put him in supporting roles. I take it Elba's drinking priest Moreau was supposed to be a breakout, memorable, funny character, but I thought the role was largely forgettable and wasted Elba. Ciaran Hinds, who did such an excellent job as Julius Caesar, in Rome, was also wasted.
In ways the film looked better than the first. Ghost Rider's skull and clothes looked really charred, though at times I thought his skull was too dark. I also liked what happened to the bad guys whenever they came into contact with his chains. So the action was decent. There could always have been more. And there were some weird spots where Rider is just standing around when he should be fighting, in the middle of the action. Besides the Devil, the main henchman was Blackout. The movie gets points for going to the comics, though I don't think the actor brought anything special to the role (he was better as Blackout though than when he was a human), and I also give them points for not throwing a lot of villains in there like in the first film, because it seemed like all of those villains got short shrift. With Blackout, I just think they didn't do enough with the confrontations he had with the Rider, and there weren't enough confrontations.
I recommend not checking this out in 3D if you are inclined to watch it at all.
