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ReelTalk Movie Reviews
Race with the Devil
by Adam Hakari

All comic book heroes carry a certain amount of psychological baggage, and Marvel Comics' Ghost Rider certainly hauls around his share of weight. The powers of this hero come not from radiation or enough gadgetry to make James Bond blush but rather as a result of a bargain with the Prince of Darkness himself. However, perhaps Ghost Rider the film should have been left on the printed page, where artists have a lot more freedom and opportunity to set the brooding protagonist on a series of dark adventures. Although movies have pulled off many incredible things in comic-based movies (from convincing us that  Superman can fly to sending Spider-Man slinging webs across the Big Apple), but making a dude who fights evil while his skull is on fire look as cool as the idea sounds isn't one of them.

Years ago, stunt cyclist Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage) signed his soul away to the one and only Mephistopheles (Peter Fonda) in order to save his dad from cancer. The Devil kept his end of the deal but ended up shafting Johnny, forcing him to abandon his sweetheart Roxanne and leaving him trapped in Old Scratch's employ. Years later, growing fame as a stunt rider has occupied Johnny's time, but just as Roxanne (Eva Mendes) re-enters his life, the Devil comes calling with a job for him. Mephistopheles' son, Blackheart (Wes Bentley), has arrived on Earth -- and teamed up with demons representing three elements -- to create a new Hell in our world.

In order to battle Blackheart and his crew, Johnny is transformed into the Ghost Rider, the Devil's personal bounty hunter, with a flaming skeleton for a body and such superpowers as making evildoers suffer all the pain they've inflicted upon others. Obviously, painfully transforming into a demonic defender of justice doesn't trip Johnny's trigger, but when Roxanne's life is threatened, he has no choice but to do the Devil's bidding and use his newfound powers to send Blackheart back to the underworld.

Despite mental scars suffered while watching the dreadful remake of The Wicker Man, I still held out hopes for Nicolas Cage and Ghost Rider. My inner comic book nerd was intrigued to see how writer/director Mark Steven Johnson (who delivered the underrated comic adaptation Daredevil four years ago) would pull off the dark storyline and massive special effects work involved.

So, is Ghost Rider as big a bust as some fans have been fearing? Well, yes and no, although the flick racks up more misses than hits. Having wrapped principal photography in 2005, the filmmakers obviously spent a lot of time trying to perfect the effects, but the results are wildly mixed. At a distance, when riding his souped-up motorcycle up the side of a skyscraper or pulling a hammer throw with a helicopter, Ghost Rider looks good, but not as cool are the chintzy "oogah-boogah" demon effects or Ghost Rider's close-ups (a talking skull appears exactly as awkward as it sounds).

Ghost Rider has the air of a movie made simply because it was an untapped comic book property. Johnson tries going for something different by turning the story into something of a modern-day Western with supernatural elements, but his approach is an unabashedly cheesy one, with a corny "Ghost Rider legend" aspect to the plot and Johnny Blaze spouting off one-liners that try too hard to sound cool while in his more fiery form.

Cage brings traces of his gonzo acting style to the part of Johnny, and although he's not as unintentionally hilarious as he was in The Wicker Man, moments such as when he flips out during his first transformation into Ghost Rider may induce some serious snickering. Eva Mendes is absolutely lovely, although her part really doesn't require her to do much but stand around and expose her cleavage. Fonda makes a decent Devil, and Sam Elliott's booming voice serves well as the film's occasional narrator, but I can't say the same for Elliott's thin role, not to mention Bentley's laughable turn as Blackheart and the "elemental demons," who all look like disgruntled Hot Topic employees.

Fortunately, Ghost Rider isn't the death knell for movies based on comics. Films like 300, Spider-Man 3, and the upcoming Batman Begins sequel promise to keep the genre alive and entertaining. It's best to consider this mild misfire as merely a pothole in the road of comic book cinema.

MY RATING: ** (out of ****)

(Released by Sony Pictures and rated "PG-13" for horror violence and disturbing images.)


                                                                                                                                                                               
 
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