The extended cut puts a little meat on the bones of this skeleton tale, and Blu-ray makes those wonderful CGI flames look even better.
And then there's Sam. Whether he's playing the sagely bouncer in "Road House" or a cemetery caretaker, as he does here, Sam Elliott has such a unique presence that he elevates the film when he's onscreen. More than Mendez, he seems to connect with Cage, and maybe it's a shared love of bikes that's responsible. Cage said that this film was partly about trying to get people excited about motorcycles again. That's evident at least with Cage, who hasn't had this much fun around bikes since "Raising Arizona."
The "extended cut" inserts mostly quieter scenes that flesh out the story a little, so that it has more emotional resonance. It's an improvement over the theatrical release. What film about Satan and hell couldn't use more depth?
Video:
The 1080p Hi-Def picture is presented in 2.40:1 aspect ratio, and it's fairly stunning, especially with those fiery sequences. Some of the darker scenes get a little murky, but that seems to have been a director's choice. Colors are generally bright and fully saturated, and the level of detail is very, very good.
Audio:
It's no secret that I'm a fan of PCM, and this English 5.1 uncompressed soundtrack is pretty phenomenal. You'd hope for that, actually, with so many choppers roaring around and flames sizzling. The sound is so pure and clean that it fills the room. An English Dolby TrueHD soundtrack is also pretty good, but the French 5.1 sounds a little flat by comparison.
Extras:
Two commentaries are included, one by writer-director Mark Steven Johnson and visual effects supervisor Kevin Mack, and the other by producer Gary Foster. Normally it's the director's track that's most worth listening to, but this time Foster's commentary was the biggest surprise. If you ever want to know what a producer does, you get a pretty good idea here, as Foster tells stories about "fires" he had to put out. By comparison, Johnson and Mack's commentary is pretty standard, and they spend an awful lot of time telling us how wonderful the whole experience was for them.
Three roughly 20-minute documentaries are also included, though the divisions seem strange: spirit of vengeance, spirit of adventure, spirit of execution. Mostly we're talking about a single making-of feature that's been cut into three segments highlighting conception and pre-production, production, and post-production. But even then there's overlapping, with plenty of behind-the-scenes production shots. Sometimes there's a split screen showing two separate sequences with a voiceover, and I found that to be the most concentrated and interesting way to get a feel for the process. The pace was leisurely, and there was plenty of raw footage to satisfy movie-lovers. As behind-the-scenes features run, these were pretty good.
Missing from the extended cut DVD is a roughly 50-minute overview of the comic book, "Sin & Salvation," so fans will still have to hang on to their non-HD copies. If studios don't rectify this problem soon, none of us are going to have space for anything.
Bottom Line:
The extended cut puts a little meat on the bones of this skeleton tale, and Blu-ray makes those wonderful CGI flames look even better. "Ghost Rider" might not be the knock-your-socks-off comic book adaptation that fans were hoping for, but it's solid enough.
The "extended cut" inserts mostly quieter scenes that flesh out the story a little, so that it has more emotional resonance. It's an improvement over the theatrical release. What film about Satan and hell couldn't use more depth?
Video:
The 1080p Hi-Def picture is presented in 2.40:1 aspect ratio, and it's fairly stunning, especially with those fiery sequences. Some of the darker scenes get a little murky, but that seems to have been a director's choice. Colors are generally bright and fully saturated, and the level of detail is very, very good.
Audio:
It's no secret that I'm a fan of PCM, and this English 5.1 uncompressed soundtrack is pretty phenomenal. You'd hope for that, actually, with so many choppers roaring around and flames sizzling. The sound is so pure and clean that it fills the room. An English Dolby TrueHD soundtrack is also pretty good, but the French 5.1 sounds a little flat by comparison.
Extras:
Two commentaries are included, one by writer-director Mark Steven Johnson and visual effects supervisor Kevin Mack, and the other by producer Gary Foster. Normally it's the director's track that's most worth listening to, but this time Foster's commentary was the biggest surprise. If you ever want to know what a producer does, you get a pretty good idea here, as Foster tells stories about "fires" he had to put out. By comparison, Johnson and Mack's commentary is pretty standard, and they spend an awful lot of time telling us how wonderful the whole experience was for them.
Three roughly 20-minute documentaries are also included, though the divisions seem strange: spirit of vengeance, spirit of adventure, spirit of execution. Mostly we're talking about a single making-of feature that's been cut into three segments highlighting conception and pre-production, production, and post-production. But even then there's overlapping, with plenty of behind-the-scenes production shots. Sometimes there's a split screen showing two separate sequences with a voiceover, and I found that to be the most concentrated and interesting way to get a feel for the process. The pace was leisurely, and there was plenty of raw footage to satisfy movie-lovers. As behind-the-scenes features run, these were pretty good.
Missing from the extended cut DVD is a roughly 50-minute overview of the comic book, "Sin & Salvation," so fans will still have to hang on to their non-HD copies. If studios don't rectify this problem soon, none of us are going to have space for anything.
Bottom Line:
The extended cut puts a little meat on the bones of this skeleton tale, and Blu-ray makes those wonderful CGI flames look even better. "Ghost Rider" might not be the knock-your-socks-off comic book adaptation that fans were hoping for, but it's solid enough.
Average user rating (1-5):
[release]20916[/release]