Cheesy Rider

Rating: 5/10 (8 January 2020)

Ghost Rider is simultaneously fantastic and terrible. Yes, the script is fairly bad, and some of the acting is a little bit rubbish, but can you really argue with a demonic bounty hunter with motorbike leather and a flaming head? Not really. Sadly though, one of the film's major flaws, in my opinion, is there isn't enough actual Ghost Riding! But we do get a cowboy Ghost Rider, which is just glorious, and they were fools not to give him his own spin off. Fools, I tell ya! Anyway, the plot, such as it is,concerns a motorbike stuntman (Nicolas Cage) who makes a deal with the devil Mephistopheles (Peter Fonda, who's clearly relishing the role), and becomes the aforementioned flame-headed demonic bounty hunter, while trying to get back together with his old girlfriend (Eva Mendes, who's trying her best to handle a cheesy romantic subplot).
First off, it all looks terrific;the CGI used to burn Nicolas Cage's flesh off (or maybe that was just his really intense acting) and demon-ify his motorbike is fantastic. Also, it's great that Nicolas Cage is basically playing, erm, Nicolas Cage. This means that the character of Johnny Blaze is imbued with some bizarre characteristics e.g. drinking jelly beans out of a martini glass. Other great acting in the film comes from Peter Fonda as the devil and Sam Elliot, who plays a mysterious old cowboy type, with the greatest 'stache ever seen in any film I've watched.Also, the heavy metal score is awesome, and the cowboy Ghost Rider is the Best Thing Ever.
Now, the bad stuff: The script is clunky and some characters are thinly sketched. Also, though the main villain, Blackheart (Wes Nelson) is admirably unhinged, he kept distractingly reminding me of Edward from Twilight for some reason, and the side villains, for all their apparent deadliness, don't really prove much of a challenge for Ol' Flamehead (though their killings are epic). The plot is also loaded with plot holes you could drive a flaming bike through. All this said though, it's great for some mindless, so-bad-it's-good fun.