A stylish but completely empty comic book adventure

Rating: 2/10 (28 May 2008)

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
Comic books would appear to be such a good commercial investment for film makers they're making them left, right and centre nowadays, even these obscure ones that would be simply too violent or scary to make into family adventures. Yes, comic book enthusiasts may suffer at the taunts of the intolerant and ignorant, with cries of 'nerd' and 'loser', but never doubt they're almost unrivalled appeal to the box office consensus. And so we have Ghost Rider, another obscure Marvel Comics adaptation that made it to the big screen. But while The Punisher managed to be a none stop action thrill ride, this effort sadly derails off course fairly early on and never stops from there.
The plot, for what it's worth, has Nicolas Cage as Johnny Blaze, who as a young man was conned by the devil into selling his soul to him, only for his father to die in a freak stunt-gone-wrong at his carnival. Years later, he's still a daredevil only to sell out crowds in Las Vegas rather than country carny folk. But the devil returns (his name's Mephistopheles, by the way, and he's played by Peter Fonda) and calls on a bargain to free his soul. He must use some skills given to him to take care of his son who wants to take over the world. Instead, he uses them to fight evil, seeing into the souls of the wicked and stopping any future crimes. As events build up to a cataclysmic showdown, he tries to rekindle his romance with teenage sweetheart Roxanne (Eva Mendes) who's now a news reporter, and is given advice and guidance by wisely old man The Caretaker (Sam Elliot.)
Real life comic book enthusiast Cage was an obvious choice for the role, but turns in what is becoming a typically dour performance that brings nothing to the role whatsoever. Mendes is okay as a feisty love interest, but is really just eye candy, while gravelly voiced legend Elliot is sadly equally as fruitless in the wise old warrior role. The only one who really makes an impression is Fonda as the devil, giving it that devilish charm the role requires but the script fails to lift anything higher because of it.
The film itself is slick, stylish and polished enough and had it been ten or maybe even twenty minutes shorter it might have passed as harmless hokum. Unfortunately the result is overlong inanity, with a weak, apathetic plot, a slack script and poor performances that make it an instantly forgettable comic book disaster.
Mark Steven Johnson's previous film was the other comic book adventure, called, appropriately enough, Daredevil. This manages to make that seem like, well, The Punisher. *