Review Content Analysis (Ghost Rider)

Paragraph one:

The reviewer explains what is needed in a movie that has been taken from a comic book, for example, needs to be shady, sinister and edgy but same time needs to be bright colourful cartoonish etc.. He believes that comic book movies doesn’t even always need to make sense. He also gives example of a different movie from the same genre.

Paragraph two and three:

In the 2^nd paragraph, the reviewer given a summary of the storyline, including the names and the main events that has happened. On the 3^rd paragraph the reviewer talks about the things they’ve done well. He says that it’s usually hard to sell this type of movie but the director is smart enough to make it interesting, full of cheeky winks and nods to the audience to make it watchable. And makes the audience forget about the real world during the movie time. Therefore in this paragraph are the things he actually has done well.

Paragraph four and five:

In paragraph 4 the reviewer talks about Nicolas Cage (main character) and how well he has done as the main character in the film and make the character a more interesting character to watch. Also, it tells that even before the film cage was a really big fan of the comic books and he also had a Ghost rider tattoo that had to be removed with makeup before shooting the film. And in Paragraph 5 the reviewer says that Mendes was a ultimately a distraction even though she was seen good in her role as a love interest. Also, it takes about some of the characters, and how he thought they have acted.

Paragraph six:

In this paragraph the reviewer is saying the target audience for the film, what to expect and what not to expect, for example his saying if you actually ask why the water doesn’t put out the flames in the movie, then you are watching the wrong film because this film is based on a comic book therefore you’ll find tale of heroes and villains.

Review content analysis (Ghost Rider)

Paragraph one: Berardinelli is talking about comic books and how it can become a film like Ghost rider. And he also says that the comic books of Ghost rider was popular because of the cool images presented by the tittle character.


Paragraph 2: In this paragraph Berardinelli says comic books and theology shouldn't mix, Where as in Ghost rider it has mixed. Therefore at this point he suggests that they have done something wrong with in the structure of the film, and he also thinks that the devil isn't as bad as his son therefore makes the story abit weird.

Paragraph 3 and 4: On the third paragraph he gives us a summary of what actually happens in the film, this is done so that people who haven't watched the film yet would have an idea on what it is about therefore could make their mind up if it's worth going to and watching it. The 4th paragraph he gives his opinion of the film. Which he finds the film 'too silly to be taken seriously', he thinks that is is nowhere near spider-man, The X-man, Superman or Batman (Films from the same genre). Therefore this shows the readers that he totally dislikes the film and even finds it silly, and because he is a known person people will consider what he says and might decide not to go and watch the film or have a negative idea about it already without even going yet.

Paragraph 5 and 6: On the 5^th paragraph he talks about the characters, eg. Eva Mendes not acting that well and the two main characters not looking good together on screen. And he also talks about how bad Peter Funda’s makeup and voice was really bad. And compares the film to other films from the same Genre.On the 6^th paragraph he talks about the directors pervious film and it being better than Ghost rider with fewer effects because he thinks Ghost rider was a ‘mess’.

Poster Analysis (Ghost Rider)

The tagline of poster gives us a clue on  the narrative is, this also applies in this poster because 'long ago, he made a devil to save someone he loved' tells us exactly what happened in few words, therefore by the audience reading this, they have will already have a rough idea about the film and what to expect. Also the image of the main character is big because they are well known stars therefore people would be more likely to want to go and watch the film, so that is the USP of the film Ghost Rider because seeing people like Nicolas Cage and Eva Mendes's name and picture being there shows their the main characters, therefore the audience would know that their previous films were successful and would assume due to their others films being successful, this film would also do good.

The image underneaf the characters connotes danger, because of the fire coming the man therefore this shows danger and fear and this is also a representation of the genre, this is because fire coming out someone and them not actually burning will only happen in fantasy films, and due to it being fantasy and fire coming out a man's head would make the target audience around 15 and over and another reason for this because for people younger it may not be very good for them due to a lot of violence and fire being involved in the film. Also, in the picture you can see a the man holding a girl, and it makes the audience feel mysterious about it because you can't tell if his actually saying her or harming her and the bike is on fire too, and putting the bike on the main poster makes the audience realise that there is a lot of action in the film aswell and there is fire coming out the bike too so again it is genre is showed from one of the mise-en-scene tools such as the bike.

When it comes to the title and the bottom of the poster, it is in bold and fire is coming out of the letters, this shows that there is going to be a lot of fire involved in the film so it gets the audience ready for what's coming. Also, at the very bottom you can clearly see the release date, which is February 16th,  so after the audience checks the poster, at the bottom then can see when it's coming out and they could consider going to it if they liked what they saw from the poster.

And lastly they have only used the colours black and red and white in only the title, this is usually done in serious or dangerous posters, pages etc, so already the audience has a clue on what's it like and if they like that type of genre there is a good chance of them actually wanting to watch the film so the poster gives them a direct idea that it's a fantasy film with a lot of fire involved

Textual analysis

                                               Textual Analysis

The film I’m going to analyze is ghost rider, the film was released in February 2012 in America. The director of Ghost Rider is Mark Steven Johnson. The genre of the film is fantasy thriller. The stars of the film are Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, and Sam Elliot. The movie is based on the comic books, written by Gary friedrich, Roy Thomas, Mike Ploog.

The equilibrium is when Johnny Blaze has a usual, ordinary life with his dad, both are motorcyclists and work in a carnival together. Which we could understand from the first 10 minutes of the film. The disruption is where he sells his soul to the devil so that the devil cures his fathers cancer; even though he does cure the cancer, the devil still kills the father so his out the way and doesn’t stop his son with what’s going to happen next. The recognition of the disruption is when Johnny is in a fight against the other devils so he gets his soul back; he attempts to repair the damage of the disruption is where he kills the other devils one by one. The new equilibrium is when the devils are all gone and he goes back to his normal, ordinary life with the girl he loves. Levi’s-Strauss theory of binary oppositions is shown by Johnny being the good guy and the devil being the bad one (the evil). Also, the film is in chronological order, everything starts with earliest and follows the order which they occurred.  The film is brought to a conclusion as the Ghost Rider is shown to be happy with his partner. The narrative is omniscient as no information is withheld from the audience.

The scene i’m going to analize is where Johnny goes out to beat the the devil and his son. Mephisto’s and Blackheart’s costume is typical of the genre, for example both the devils suit, everything in black, long black coat, connotes that they are the bad guys. Also, the metal stick the devil holds that has a skull on top of it shows that it doesn’t belong to a good person, the reason for this is the skull represents the bad, horror, dead. Whereas Johnny, the good guy, wears casual clothes, which shows he’s unaware of the situation and his just a normal decent guy. But he changes his costume when he agrees to fight against the Blackheart and starts to wear Black, which suggests that he is there to cause harm, but the difference is he is doing it to get rid of the devil and the bad. Their body language and facial expressions show the binary opposites in thriller films. The devil has a more of a still look to him, the way he stares and moves slowly adds to his mysteriousness, which suggests he’s the dangerous one. Also when the devil at the start is walking next to Johnny in the shadow you can see him as a humpback person, which would scare the audience and suggest he’s the antagonist which is typical of it’s genre. Also Johnny’s love, that helps him during the struggle that he was going through because of the physical change and the task he got from the devil, is typical because there’s usually a girl or a boy that protagonist loves and has next to him or her. Furthermore the devils son has red eyes and white skin and black makeup under his eyes, this suggests and makes us think he’s back from the dead or like a vampire which is typical in fantasy films.

The film is typical of it’s genre because of the effects and edits they use such as the devil randomly appearing in the scene, Johnny having a skull head that’s on fire, the effects they have on their eye like the flames, the way Johnny killed the bad guys and them turning blue to being a skull and the way Johnny does his big jumps on his motorbike is all typical of the fantasy/thriller and the audience would have expected this therefore it goes well with the story.

In the scene where Johnny is fighting with the bad guys, when the fire explodes you can hear diegetic and non diegetic noises, diegetic is the sound of fire itself and the non-diegetic is the background noise to build tension, they filmed this by using fade for us to think about what could happen next. And then when the character Johnny is shown on screen, over the shoulder is used to show what the character is up to and make the audience feel like their in the film themselves.  Extreme close up has been used on the characters face to show their anger and fear which builds up tension. Also, when Johnny got away from the fire easily it fitted in with the genre because it’s fantasy so we would expect the impossible. Furthermore, black makeup used underneath the devils eye to suggest he’s the bad one, and long coats used to show they’re bad because that’s the kind of things they wore e.g. Mafia. Also, when the camera showed an innocent man you can see his facial expressions by the shot reverse shot. When the devil says ‘that’s what they keep telling me’ you can sense something bad is going to happen because of his facial expressions such, for example, when he stayed still looking at another man, it’s like we knew something bad was going to happen.