Good popcorn fun

Rating: 7/10 (18 February 2007)

Ghost Rider is better than I expected. After all the complaints about the movie, I found myself pleasantly surprised with it. This is not a movie to be taken seriously. It is just simple popcorn fun.
Nicholas Cage plays stunt motorcyclist Johnny Blaze who years ago as a teenager sold his soul to the devil in order to save his father from the cancer that was killing him. Jump to the present and we discover that the devil has come to collect on the bargain they made. You see Blackheart(Wes Bentley), who is the son of the devil, has escaped from Hell. He has come to Earth to collect a document which will give him the power to create hell on Earth. The devil of course doesn't want him to have it, and so he gets Johnny, giving him the power of the fiery Ghost Rider, to bring him back to Hell. Of course Blackheart isn't ready to go back and so a battle ensues between the two.
I enjoyed the story, and enjoyed Sam Elliot in his role as a cemetery worker who tells Johnny about the curse and explains all the information we need to know. Of course Sam Elliot's character has a few secrets of his own, even though they were not really too surprising. I sort of knew where the story of Sam Elliots character was going when he first appeared on the scene. Enough of that though.
Ghost Rider is not the greatest comic book movie ever made. It has its flaws, but it was purely entertaining and has its place among other comic book adaptations. I would give it about the same rating as the Fantastic Four from 2005. And to those people who are trashing it, maybe you should all lighten up and enjoy the movie for what it is, a fun paced thriller that is much better than some of the lame movies I've seen so far this year. By the way, the special effects were really good too.