Deprecated: mb_convert_encoding(): Handling HTML entities via mbstring is deprecated; use htmlspecialchars, htmlentities, or mb_encode_numericentity/mb_decode_numericentity instead in /var/www/html/wp-content/plugins/super-cool-ad-inserter/inc/scaip-shortcode-inserter.php on line 37
It’s a mildly entertaining idea — man sells soul, later becomes a motorbike-riding avenger with a flaming skull for a head — stretched far too thin in Mark Steve Johnson’s unsatisfying adaptation of a Marvel comic. It could have been a short-and-sweet hoot, but Johnson opts for brooding, leavened with off-key notes of humor. Nicolas Cage portrays a gloomy stunt biker called Johnny Blaze; presumably Cage plays his skeleton-on-fire alter ego too, though the Ghost Rider is just so much CGI. Having opted to go semi-serious, Ghost scrimps on developing Blaze’s various corporal and emotional burdens, instead dilly-dallying in romantic subplots and lots of body-morphing special effects. It’s a bit of an in-joke that Johnson hires the original Easy Rider, Peter Fonda, to bring misery to this film’s bikers as the devil. But for grizzled-veteran casting, Sam Elliott, as the OG horseback Ghost Rider, gallops away with the film, leaving Cage dazed and blinking in his dust. (AH) 
This article appears in Feb 22-28, 2007.
