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March 03, 2007
Mistakes Were Made, People Were Hurt
Last night I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life. While I normally consider myself a level-headed, even-keeled sort of girl, I have a bit of an Achilles' heel when it comes to boys. And approximately 24 hours ago, I paid a steep price for that weakness.
That's right, dear reader, at the suggestion of Mr. Pilot, I saw Ghost Rider. And I will never be the same.
Mr. Pilot and I walked out of the theatre stunned, dazed, and incredulous. It was, by far, the worst movie we have EVER seen. In fact, we spend a solid hour afterwards, and a good hour today, trying to think of worse movies--the closest I could come was Snake Eyes, also starring Nicolas Cage. (Coindicence? You decide...)
Mostly, we were surprised that we didn't know it was going to be atrocious before we walked into the movie. Mr. Pilot and I are both pop culture junkies, and yet somehow we missed this bomb. Mr. Pilot blames Anna Nicole for diverting media attention away, and has even postulated that Nick Cage had a hand in her death solely in order to get a second week as the #1 movie in America.
We looked up critical reviews last night, which confirmed that weren't alone in thinking Ghost Rider is an abomination. Here are a few choice statements:
I kept hoping the Scooby Doo gang would come out, rip the mask off of Cage and reveal Ghost Rider really is crazy old man Ben Affleck! That would explain so much. -- Willie Waffle, WaffleMovies.com
It's easy to imagine why Cage would want to write a couple of his own lines. After all, you'd tell Dr. Kevorkian you could take your own temperature, right? -- Mike Ward, Richmond.com
For years scientists have theorized that one day Nicolas Cage would overact so badly that his head would burst into flames. Now, with Ghost Rider, the phenomenon has finally come to pass...When in the presence of evil, Johnny's skin melts off his face and his skull is engulfed with the unquenchable flame of damnation. Compared to the audience, Johnny gets off easy. -- Phil Villarreal, Arizona Daily Star
The blank, frenetic exhaustion of the final reel acts like a kid who tries to snap out of a candy-binge coma by snorting lines of Pixy Stix. -- Nathan Lee, Village Voice
Ghost Rider reportedly cost $120 million to make. But the resulting cheesy CGI effects, bad sets and music and mugging by the actors, especially Cage, suggest you spent your life's savings and ended up with a Yugo. -- James Verniere, Boston Herald
Frankly, the best thing about the movie was Eva Mendez's breasts, which although lovingly flaunted in each scene, were not enough to compensate for the pure agony that was every second of that bloated, horrific experience.
