While director Mark Steven Johnson´s Daredevil was a sincere if failed attempt to accurately bring a Marvel comic to life, this cartoon version of Ghost Rider forgoes all respect for the source material and does succeed in a Schumacher-Batman kind of way.
If that´s a turnoff, or if you´re in any way a fan of the original comic, you´ll do well to stay away; but if you can accept that a film about a motorcycle-riding flaming skull in leather and chains perhaps shouldn´t take itself too seriously, you may have fun here.
Young stunt motorcyclist Johnny Blaze sells his soul to the Devil (Peter Fonda) in order to save his father´s life; dad´s cancer is cured but he dies in a stunt crash (what, you can´t trust the devil these days?) and young Johnny realizes what he has gotten himself into.
Flash-forward fifteen years: Blaze is now a comically sedated Nicolas Cage (having a lot of fun here), a fearless, famous, Evel Knievel-like stuntman, when the Devil comes to collect his dues. Devil´s son Blackheart (Wes Bentley) has betrayed his father, and now seeks sacred document that will give him limitless power. Or some such nonsense.
In any event, Devil turns Cage into said flaming skull, orders him to stop son and cohorts, and film now delves fully into action-comedy. Sam Elliot shows up late for plot exposition, as if we cared.
Johnson must have realized he would get laughs either way, and tried to play it off as best he could. Superhero genre is one that´s usually a bit tough to take on the screen; you can argue over Batman, but I´m fairly certain this is the only way a Ghost Rider movie could have succeeded.
Faithful it isn´t; but it is amusing, well played, and mostly entertaining. Only formula plot drags it down. Cage, Fonda, Elliot and Eva Mendes all know exactly what they´re starring in and have plenty of fun (though poor Wes Bentley seems to have taken this seriously).
Costly production features excellent effects – especially the flaming skull, which is pulled off better than one could have expected (though at times it seems too small; or maybe Cage´s head just seems too big in comparison).
For what it´s worth, film is as good, and as bad, as Schumacher´s two Batman flicks.
