Nicolas Cage (National Treasure) and that girl from Hitch star in this slightly odd comic book movie.

Johnny Blaze (Cage) is a motorcycle stunt man, following in the footsteps of his father. Shortly after he finds out that his father has cancer he is approached by a man who offers to cure his father's cancer if he promises him his soul.

The following morning his father is in tip-top health but during his stunt it all goes wrong and he dies. Realising he's been duped, Johny leaves town only to run into that same guy, who curses him and promises him that one day he will call upon him.

At around the date of the 20th anniversary of his father's death he finds himself compelled to go after a group of fallen angels whom all have elemental skills who are after the devil's power. He becomes the Ghost Rider, or the Devil's bounty hunter.

Where to start on this movie. Ok, conceptially I have a few issues about the whole "devil" angle. From my point of view, like most films that touch on Christianity as a religion, they manage to miss out any of the actual Christian elements of the faith. In this case, focussing mainly on the devil, with only vague references to angels and God. It's as if they've deliberately stripped any actual Christianity from it. But then I never really expected it to do that right anyway.

Then there was the plot. A few gaping holes that they seemed to get confused about. At one point early on one of the characters said "You'll be okay here, it's holy ground". Following that about half of the rest of the battles occured on church premises or at least in church ruins. Perhaps they were commenting that it's not the building that is holy but the people, but somehow I doubt it.

If they got anything right it was making Ghost Rider appear quite scary, but in relation to this the reactions of the people he ran into were not what you'd expect upon seeing a burning skeleton walking towards you - they even seemed surprised when after stabbing him he was okay.

The special effects were well done, though sometimes over the top. Some of the shots of the guilty having their souls taken were, in my opinion, genuinely scary.

All in all, despite a good performance by Cage this film was rather disappointing and not one I'd see again.

see also:
Die Hard 4.0, Limitless, Taken, The Sum of all fears

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photo © Columbia Pictures.