Ghost Rider
Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) | Release Date: February 16, 2007 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
35
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 20 Critic Reviews
Positive:
1
Mixed:
9
Negative:
10
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
This time out, writer and director Mark Steven Johnson has bounced back with a movie so full of camp spirit it should come with tents and a marshmallow roast. Read full review
60
Film ThreatZach Haddad
As a film on its own, Ghost Rider isn't amazing, but it is definitely a decent popcorn flick. As an entry into the superhero genre, Ghost Rider is only a couple notches above the "X-Men: The Last Stand." Read full review
60
EmpireWilliam Thomas
A blockbuster that offers enough quirky pleasures to feel fresh and unpredictable. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesMichael Ordona
It's entertaining to watch ol' hothead do his thing with his fiery chain and his "penance stare," but for a comic book with a rebel spirit, the adaptation feels obediently conventional. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
With its cheesy special effects and blasphemously imbecilic storyline, one wonders whether the celluloid version of Ghost Rider will find an audience. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
What sticks is a colorful, mesmerizing, at times breathtaking mess - it's like watching a bonfire on acid - and what slides to the floor is, well, you probably don't want to know. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
The story doesn't arc so much as unspool like a stretch of desert highway, but the Ghost Rider is such a powerful amalgam of hot-rod iconography that this is still fairly watchable. Read full review
50
L.A. WeeklyScott Foundas
iInstead of a buoyant, imaginative superhero movie on the order of Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" films or Bryan Singer's "Superman Returns," we get a lumbering, paint-by-numbers origin story. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
So much flatter than it was on the comic-book page. Read full review
40
Village VoiceNathan Lee
Johnson's a hardcore, dime-store fanboy, not a revisionist-minded fauxteur like Christopher Nolan or Bryan Singer, and his giddy, goofball affection for the material sustained my goodwill until his underdeveloped grasp of form and rhythm let it slip away. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Ghost Rider is the kind of movie that's great stupid fun as long as someone else is buying the tickets. Read full review
38
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Marvel-man Mark Steven Johnson, who wrote and directed "Daredevil" (2003) and scripted "Elektra" (2005), continues to demonstrate the wrong way to make comic book movies: Make sure special effects overwhelm the characters, let campy mannerisms go unchecked and be sure dialogue is declaimed rather than spoken. Read full review
33
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
Cage has some fun with the role, making Blaze a kind of Zen Elvis with a strange fixation on Carpenters songs, but the film's priorities lie with the digital effects and not the story, and even the effects aren't that hot. Read full review
30
The Hollywood ReporterFrank Scheck
All of [Cages's] natural charisma is unable to compensate for the plodding narrative and thin characterizations. Read full review
30
The New York TimesJeannette Catsoulis
This dissociation leaves the supporting cast to its own devices, with no one suffering more than the appealing Eva Mendes as Johnny's true love, Roxanne. If Ms. Mendes ever finds a director willing to allow her to perform with her shirts fully buttoned, there will be no stopping her. Read full review
30
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Has all the sugar-injected horsepower of a 6-year-old on a Big Wheel. Read full review
25
New York PostKyle Smith
The movie's last words are "This is how legends are born." Make that stillborn, because when the makers of this one pitch the sequel, the only answer is going to be, "Ah HA HA HA!" Read full review
25
San Francisco ChroniclePeter Hartlaub
Ghost Rider has everything you don't want from your superhero movie, including lack of logic, boring action scenes, bad acting in the supporting performances, a brutally slow 114-minute running time and cringe-worthy dialogue. Read full review
25
Rolling StonePeter Travers
The real evil in this flick isn't Blackheart (Wes Bentley), the devil's son, it's the soul-sucking devil of modern cinema: Hollywood formula. Read full review
20
VarietyRobert Koehler
Though the superhero's fans have long awaited his close-up, the Devil's bounty hunter -- complete with a burning skull for a head and a killer motorcycle in flames --materializes in a movie that never measures up to his infernal potential. Read full review
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