Ghost Rider

The first Marvel Comics adaptation of the year - 'Spiderman 3' is out in May, not sure if there are any more to come...

Before starting my review of this film, I'll state up front that my knowledge of the Ghost Rider character is limited to two very basic facts:
1) He rides a motorcycle.
2) He has a flaming skull as a head.

As a result I had fewer expectations/prejudices than usual for a comic book adaptation and my only requirement from the film was that I wanted an enjoyable popcorn movie.

The film starts with a voice-over telling the story of "the Devil's bounty hunter" in the Old West; a ghostly rider who travels the plains collecting on contracts for Mephistopheles. The voice in question is that of Sam Elliott, and if you want someone to provide a gruff Western prologue in a film you'd be hard pressed to find anyone better than Sam (after all the Coen Brothers used him to similar effect at the start and end of "The Big Lebowski"). So that's two boxes ticked for me: "Western" - Check. "Biblical References" - Check. (Three if you include "Sam Elliott voice-over")

The film then jumps forward in time and introduces the audience to a young Johnny Blaze, a motorcycle stunt performer who works with his father. Without going into too much plot detail, Johnny ends up selling his soul to the Devil (Peter Fonda, clearly enjoying the chance to camp it up as the ultimate bad guy) - an act that isn't without consequences; as folklore tells us, Old Nick rarely delivers on his end of the bargain without some dark twist. There were two things I particularly liked in this opening sequence. Firstly, Johnny makes his contract with the Devil while stood on a crossroads - Robert Johnson would be pleased. Secondly, in a nice little touch, the actress playing the young Roxanne (the character played later in the film by Eva Mendes) is made up with a mole that matches Eva's.

We then jump forward in time again to the 'present' and meet a seemingly invincible Johnny Blaze (played by Nicholas Cage), a man who performs all manner of motorcycle stunts without any regard to his own safety. Johnny is 'lucky' enough to be watched over by an angel (of the fallen kind); Mephistopheles won't let him die until his debt is paid off in full. Such an opportunity comes about when Blackheart (Mephistopheles' son) tries to wrest dominion of Hell from his old man's hands. Johnny now learns that it is his destiny to become the 'Ghost Rider' - at night, and when in the presence of evil, he metamorphs into the flame-headed hero of the comic books. The film now follows Johnny as he gets used to his new powers (demonic bike, flaming chain and 'Penance Stare'™) and leads to his eventual show-down with Bleakheart in the ghost town (literally) of San Venganzas.

As you can probably tell from the length of this post, I enjoyed "Ghost Rider". It won't win any awards for story or acting (I'm sure Eva Mendes is in the film just to provide a transportation device for her cleavage, which makes an appearance in all but one scene that she's in), but it is still highly enjoyable nonsense - a heady mix of supernatural vigilantes and Biblical elements with a sprinkle of Westerns.


Note: For those of you wondering (like I did) where the usual Stan Lee cameo is, there isn't one...
(Stan had no part in the creation of the Ghost Rider character)