Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance 2011

Glenn Kenny, MSN Movies: 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.' Read more

Neil Genzlinger, New York Times: 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. Read more

Nathan Rabin, AV Club: At best, the Neveldine/Taylor team is capable of transforming ingeniously trashy premises into pop art, but here, they inherit a promisingly trashy franchise and fail to give it the allure and go-for-broke energy of superior trash. Read more

Adam Markovitz, Entertainment Weekly: Like the first Ghost Rider movie, this one burns plenty of rubber trying to swerve around plot holes and thinly written characters. Read more

William Goss, Film.com: An aggressively mediocre improvement on the first film. Read more

John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter: Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance nudges its obscure hero's mythology forward a bit without seeming to care much how it gets there. Read more

Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times: Like a laboratory experiment on how often a movie can spin from bad to good and back again. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: That mix of admirable restraint and unabashed pandering makes Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance a guilty pleasure, if not the most wholesome treat. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: 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. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: 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. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: This is a boring movie. The over-the-top outlandishness can't disguise that the whole 95 minutes represent one big snooze-fest. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: 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! Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: This is a movie about a flaming skeleton that rides a motorcycle -- there's no excuse for it to be this dull. Read more

Nigel Floyd, Time Out: Supernatural fantasy movies often work best when the film-maker's tongue is planted firmly in the cheek. Read more

Linda Barnard, Toronto Star: 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. Read more

Andrew Barker, Variety: 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. Read more

Nick Pinkerton, Village Voice: 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." Read more

Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture: The bad news is that this sequel, which wants to wow us with its unrestrained, hyper-stylized, WTF-ness, is way too disposable for its own good. Read more