A roller-coaster ride that doesn't know where it's going.

Rating: 3/10 (11 May 2008)

This movie offers what can be a typical comic book scenario: (although I never read any comic books in my youth) Good vs evil, vengeance, coming to terms with his past and is interspersed with a love story or something.
Fine, I wasn't expecting an Oscar, and I didn't really expect more than sub par. We get explosions, a little back story, and some romantic interest - but when it all boils down to it, there was no real conflict, tension and you come out of the movie but wasted time and disappointment.
It's the story about how the Marvels comic book character Ghost Rider became the Ghost Rider, selling his soul to the Devil to save his pop, who inadvertently dies. How he challenges his own curse in the name of "goodness".
Sounds like something I could stomach, and should have been passable - simply for a fun ride.
I liked Batman, Spiderman to a certain extent and the game to movie adaption of Silent Hill(despite it's "neccesary" Hollywood ending) to name a few. But, this one is all dumbed down for the masses, and with some totally out of place romance added so that the movie makers wont risk losing money from your girlfriend refusing to see the movie with you.
It's a classic money making Hollywood style movie. Take a comic book brand, add famous actor, special effects, action and romance and sweet happy ending. Which equals instant money maker but, sadly it bombed out on all counts and in the process lost it's soul.
Nicholas Cage has been sliding downwards for me lately with movies like Wicker Man or national treasure for example. Much like Christian Slater they haven't been getting the nicest cuts of meat Hollywood has given them and their acting has fallen flat to the point where they are just themselves.
Nicholas Cage pretty much plays Nicholas Cage in this film, His wooden acting, blank stares and reading of cheesy lines was sad really. Not to mention he looked he was too old for the part. They kept calling the character he played Johnny Blaze "kid" and he is clearly 43 years old. He wears a really bad hair piece cut to above the ears longest in the back with a receding hairline. He also seems way older than his lost love Eva Mendes whose role as journalist as most poor journalist impressions in movies. The love story was alright in the first half hour but when he grows up, it's just a bore.
The special effects, which are the only possible reason I can think of to see the movie, are on par with what you can expect with CGI, although I was surprised to see some very poor budget movie'ish face morphing effects that gave me flashbacks from the early 90s. They wont blow you away, just barely keep you from falling asleep.
Doing random things with the bike didn't impress me: driving up walls, through water, on water and just practically making the bike do whatever the hell they felt like making it do. If love choppers etc, this won't please you at all, these guys probably know as much as the average Joe bloggs. Even with a little "street cred" like Peter Fonda who thankfully doesn't do much harm to his career with his small cameo appearances as the devil.
The villains themselves eclipse Cages poor acting. Even rated alongside children's movie villains they come out terrible. Complete with sneers and grimaces. Bold lines like "I'll destroy you" and zero character depth.
Tame, cowardly, boring and mostly an insult to the comic strip. Ghost Rider coasts along blindly throughout the film with little resistance or tension from the bad guys and fails to please.