by Cyrus Bales

Created on: March 02, 2007   Last Updated: May 09, 2007

GHOST RIDER

Ghost Rider, is the latest comic book film to hit our screens. Having made a large impact in the US box office and a successful marketing campaign behind it, it sets itself up for a high standards, which it unfortunately fails to meet.

Nicolas Cage plays Johnny Blaze, who after making a deal with Mephistopheles(basically the devil) to save his father's life, becomes property of the deal maker. Many years of solitary death dodging through horrific stunts, his end of the deal is called upon, turning him into the demonic Ghost Rider at night, who must stop a vicious plan.

Whilst Cage gives a good performance, at times slightly ambiguous but very likable, the rest of the cast are rather poor. The actors playing villains in this movie are atrocious, delivering cliche lines with cliche performances. The fault lies greatly with the choice of casting and screenplay, which builds up the central character only, leaving the enemies as inadequate one dimensional stereotypes.

The humor in the film comes as quite welcomed, correctly placed as to not overshadow the nature of the subject matter, but revealing the main character's emotion and points of view. There are some great sequences which blend humor and mild action nicely.

A problem within this movie is narrative's nature, which leaves no building up, or worthwhile motives for the audience to get behind. There seems very random incidents that come across as out of place, and detract away from the better elements and make the story weak.

The special effects and direction are higher points, but fail to overcome the narrative's workings and the level of acting and atrocious character development of the supporting cast, with the exception of Sam Elliot(the caretaker) who is an enjoyable character for the viewer.

Overall, this is not one of the finer moments of comic books turn films. The first sequence with Ghost Rider comes as a massive anti-climax and the film begins to fall apart from there. With a massive reworking of the villains, and a more thought-out narrative, this movie probably would have been quite impressive, as it is, Ghost rider struggles to achieve mediocre.

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