Ghost Rider: A Weak Attempt at Bringing the Comic Book to the Screen

Marvel's latest attempt at making another comic book into a movie. Although the idea is great, this is another movie that had potential but was weak. The basic story in a nutshell goes like this. People can sell their souls the the devil and he can grant them a wish and so on. The devil also has the power to choose one of his souls as a ghost rider. The ghost rider is his bounty hunter, getting souls that belong to the devil. Eventually in all the soul fetching there is a contract containing 1,000 souls for the devil. The current ghost rider of that time was sent to get the contract. Yet this ghost rider knew the power of the contract, so he runs away from the devil with the contract.

Now the story moves into the time of Johnny Blaze and his father. **SPOILERS** Johnny is in love with a girl and does motorcycle stunts with his dad at carnivals. Eventually the audience finds out Johnny's dad has cancer and it is spreading through his body. Johnny sells his soul to save his dad from cancer, but the next day his dad dies in a terrible "accident". The devil then tells Johnny that he will one day call upon him to do his bidding as the ghost rider. The story then goes on about Blackheart, satan's son, trying to find the contract and satan trying to beat him to it. The movie then follows Johnny's torment about the death of his father, and his ghost rider powers. The movie comes to an end as he beats Blackheart and gets the girl.

This movie had great trailers and previews. The rest of the movie was rather predictable. Blackheart has three demons with powers regarding the elements, earth, wind and water. The first baddie to die is earth, who has a such minimal part in the movie, you wonder why he was even introduced. Ghost rider easily kills all Blackheart's servants with little or no trouble. Nick Cage did an alright job, I think the editing did some damage to his character. The movie uses many eyes only shots and even uses a stare down technique. Nick's eyes, then a cut to Blackheart's eyes, then back to Nick's. It really took a serious scene and made it seem silly. Nick portrays a tormented soul, blaming himself for the death of his dad, and selling his soul to the devil. The next best character is the potential girlfriend, Roxanne. She does a good job of being a news anchor and old flame of Johnny.

I was really split between two thoughts of this movie. It could have been better. When Nick becomes the rider you have difficulty understanding exactly what he is saying. His attacks and riding are well designed and executed through CG technology. However the story seems weak. I could predict a majority of the movie with one or two mistakes. On the positive note, the scenery was neat, and there were some very neat/new effects I have not seen yet in movies. The fighting in the movie was pretty well done, through it could have been longer. And the pain and questions of Johnny are very well portrayed.
I would suggest going once and then renting this movie when it comes out. Nothing new or spectacular, but worth seeing once.