Fun and well-made comic book adaptation...

Rating: 7/10 (4 December 2008)

1st watched 12/2/2008  (Dir-Mark Steven Johnson): Fun and well-made comic book adaptation that was much better than I expected. I had heard a lot of bad talk about the movie and Nicholas Cage's performance in the title role but it definitely wasn't the case to me. Cage plays the older version of the main character who made a deal with the devil(played wonderfully by Peter Fonda) when he was a young so that his dad would get better. Unfortunately, the devil kills his dad during his next motorcycle stunt and the young ghost rider is stuck with being a helper for the dark one for the rest of his life. He's called to bring back the son of the devil back to hell and from this point on at nighttime he turns into the fiery-skulled character from the comic books. There is a side story about a caretaker(a former ghost rider), played by Sam Elliot, who protects and mentors the younger ghost rider and another side story involving an attempted romantic involvement with an old flame who becomes a reporter, played by Eva Mendes. She just happens to be following and reporting on Johnny Blade, who is a popular stunt rider and Cage's normal daytime character. These extra stories add to the piece, but the basic storyline is really all that is necessary to make this an entertaining movie. Cage's performance is dead-on and this unique storyline makes for a different superhero movie. Sure, Mendes isn't much more than nice to look at and Elliot pretty much plays the same character that he's done in hundreds of movies but overall the movie was a positive experience which I'm afraid won't have a sequel although I'd like to see one