Well, it is just one of those days where a sequel to a bad movie comes next. However, watching this movie I can understand that a smaller budget was used.
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Nicolas Cage is the only actor to reprise his role. He has traveled non-stop and resides in Eastern Europe. He seems to show no reason to be a part of the story, but is heckled into it anyway. So his latest mission is to retrieve a young boy, who has been chosen as a reincarnation of a devil named Rourke. He sees that wherever he goes he is not safe because evil must arise from him.
It is not as though I should care about the devil but compared to him in the last movie, he is a downgrade. I was not even aware if Rourke was the devil because he was just more of a mere man. In the first movie he was called Mephistopheles; the name itself so demonic that no man on earth would undermine it as human. In this movie he answers a human name, he resorts to worldly transportation and harnesses a human body. Mephistopheles could appear anywhere in the world with ease but Rourke must resort to cellphone communication and land transport, which are slower. This is what convinced me that Rourke was just a mere mortal instead of a devil.
The first movie demonstrated smooth computer technology, especially with the flames. But this movie was unwatchable because of the unevenly rendered CGI. I have to be frank, the whole computer work looked as though collage paper was attached to the vehicles, or if the flames were cut and pasted on top of the footage. This cheap computer work resembles comic book sketches overlapping the live work. Closely observing every shot I can see some well rendered CGI on one side, and poorly rendered CGI on the other.
The story in the first film is memorable; in this movie it is not. I cannot even follow it adequately unless I watch it and retell it to pinpoint its faults. Nothing interesting ever happens, and I as a viewer would lose focus in the sequence of events.
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Taking notes of the opening and closing credits of each film, you will notice that the first was picturesque while the second was just bland. In this movie, you will then have to hear Johnny Cage's bland and dull monologue when he explains events that took place in the last movie. These producers were so cheap that instead of reusing footage from the last movie, they make lousy picture work of such events (including one which nobody would want to recall). This is not helped when more monologues come up and inane slide shows are played along the way explaining the deal or something else irrelevant.
There is something else that I find so bothersome: there is this guy Carrigan--a Deacon Frost knock-off--with the power of decay, and when he touches his victims the very shot plunges into pitch black for no apparent reason. I guess that means his victims see darkness as they decay and die. But there are other visual distortions in the form of a layer of film as though the images were exposed to the elements after production.
Speaking of decay, Carrigan touches everything but not every material decays.
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If I opined that Cage's acting was dull last time, then I would have been impulsive because in this movie his acting is hammed up. I was aghast at how money was wasted on giving Cage so many facial distortions on camera rather than the full transformation into the hellspawn as was presented in the last movie. Many critics remarked this as a ploy to convert Cage into a cartoon character.
And let me talk more about the Ghost Rider: I do not like his image one bit. He looks burnt up like a charred match head; his jacket is burned out; he bellows too much smoke, and his speech is just a whisper made so incoherent; and his chain is charred. Thanks to a lower budget, we do not see him use his all-powerful pennant stare. Perhaps this is why we see more of Johnny Blaze for the rest of the film and less of the Rider himself.
This movie suffers from a budget too insufficient to live up to the expectations of its predecessor. It is one of those cases of 'one sequel too many.' If there is a reason to lessen the budget, then it is better to abandon plans for a sequel rather than press ahead with it.
The first movie demonstrated smooth computer technology, especially with the flames. But this movie was unwatchable because of the unevenly rendered CGI. I have to be frank, the whole computer work looked as though collage paper was attached to the vehicles, or if the flames were cut and pasted on top of the footage. This cheap computer work resembles comic book sketches overlapping the live work. Closely observing every shot I can see some well rendered CGI on one side, and poorly rendered CGI on the other.
.png)
.png)
The story in the first film is memorable; in this movie it is not. I cannot even follow it adequately unless I watch it and retell it to pinpoint its faults. Nothing interesting ever happens, and I as a viewer would lose focus in the sequence of events.
.png)
Taking notes of the opening and closing credits of each film, you will notice that the first was picturesque while the second was just bland. In this movie, you will then have to hear Johnny Cage's bland and dull monologue when he explains events that took place in the last movie. These producers were so cheap that instead of reusing footage from the last movie, they make lousy picture work of such events (including one which nobody would want to recall). This is not helped when more monologues come up and inane slide shows are played along the way explaining the deal or something else irrelevant.
.png)
.png)
There is something else that I find so bothersome: there is this guy Carrigan--a Deacon Frost knock-off--with the power of decay, and when he touches his victims the very shot plunges into pitch black for no apparent reason. I guess that means his victims see darkness as they decay and die. But there are other visual distortions in the form of a layer of film as though the images were exposed to the elements after production.
Speaking of decay, Carrigan touches everything but not every material decays.
.png)
.png)
If I opined that Cage's acting was dull last time, then I would have been impulsive because in this movie his acting is hammed up. I was aghast at how money was wasted on giving Cage so many facial distortions on camera rather than the full transformation into the hellspawn as was presented in the last movie. Many critics remarked this as a ploy to convert Cage into a cartoon character.
.png)
.png)
And let me talk more about the Ghost Rider: I do not like his image one bit. He looks burnt up like a charred match head; his jacket is burned out; he bellows too much smoke, and his speech is just a whisper made so incoherent; and his chain is charred. Thanks to a lower budget, we do not see him use his all-powerful pennant stare. Perhaps this is why we see more of Johnny Blaze for the rest of the film and less of the Rider himself.
.png)
.png)
This movie suffers from a budget too insufficient to live up to the expectations of its predecessor. It is one of those cases of 'one sequel too many.' If there is a reason to lessen the budget, then it is better to abandon plans for a sequel rather than press ahead with it.
.png)
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