Enjoyable, but it could have been better.

Rating: Null/10 (19 February 2007)

I liked Ghost Rider. This was a competently made by the numbers action movie. It could have been much better, but what was on the screen was enjoyable.
For me, the antagonists, Mephistopheles, Blackheart and Blackheart's minions, did not come off as being as evil, menacing or scary as they could have been. This was probably because more reliance was put on the costumes, make up and CG for these characters than their acting skills.
The creative people on this certainly got the look and feel of the Ghost Rider and his flaming mount. Of all the menacing minions of Hell in this movie, the Ghost Rider, to me, was actually the scariest one. Nicolas Cage came very close to putting across the personal dilemma and conflict within this character. To me, he was a very inspired choice for this role.
Probably the most memorable part of the film came from one of the lesser characters. Rebel Wilson, the 'Girl in the Ally,' delivered an extremely comic news interview. A few more little touches like this one could have helped this film.
When I first saw the trailer for this film and saw Peter Fonda in it I thought that this was an appropriate choice using him because of Easy Rider and the other biker films he was in as well as films like Dirty Mary Crazy Larry and Race with the Devil.
So I thought cool, this film will also be an homage to many of the B biker movies. Alas this was not the case. I half expected to see Dennis Hopper in a cameo, and possible even a cameo from the American Chopper cast. Don't look for those people in the film because they aren't there.
Another disappointment was the introduction of the 'bad guys' in the biker bar. This was certainly creepy enough, but I found it to be on the static and flat side. It would have had more action if the 'bad guys' had hijacked a motorcycle club ride in progress on the road.
One other little detail that could have been used in this film was Nicolas Cage's Ghost Rider tattoo, which was covered up with makeup for this film. As tattoos are an integral part of biker culture I think it would have been appropriate for the devil to mark Johnny Blaze with the tattoo as a symbol of his ownership of him. That way the tattoo could have become a nice touch in the film. The tattoo could have also shown up as a scrimshaw etching on the bones of the Ghost Rider.
The movie was enjoyable, but I think that I won't be adding it to my DVD collection for some time after that gets issued.