By Faith McQuinn

I consider myself a pretty good judge of movie character. When I see a trailer or read a synopsis, I pretty much know if I’ll see the movie in a theater, at home, or catch it on cable one late night when I have nothing better to do. The first time I saw a preview for GHOST RIDER, I knew it was going to be a video movie. Little did I know that I should’ve considered it a TNT Saturday night triple feature instead.

Nicolas Cage plays Johnny Blaze, a stunt motorcyclist who makes a deal with the devil (Peter Fonda) to save his father from lung cancer. Many years into his overwhelmingly successful career, the Devil approaches Johnny with the task of returning Blackheart (Wes Bentley) and his three comrades to their rightful place in hell. For about 10 seconds, Johnny fights the idea of being a “ghost rider,” but sooner than is healthy, he accepts his task with fiery gusto. (Pun completely intended.)

For the most part, comic book movies register at cheesy goodness on my radar. Comic book movies starring Nicholas Cage get an extra bit of cheese, but GHOST RIDER can’t even be called good in any sense of the word. I watched the Blu-ray extended cut, and I can’t begin to tell you how much I did not need an extended cut of this movie. When the most interesting moment in the movie is an iguana catching on fire, you know that two hours and seven minutes is way too long.

I cannot give all the credit for this debacle to Cage. Eva Mendes, as Johnny’s love interest Roxie, is about as cozy as a cactus. She may be hot, but she and Cage have absolutely zero screen chemistry. Watching them looking longingly at one another didn’t cause a stir for me, it just made me think “isn’t he, like, 10 years older than her?”

Sam Elliott, though always wonderful, pretty much phones in his role as the Caretaker, an Old West cowboy who would fit better in TOMBSTONE than in GHOST RIDER. I think he even dug up his costume from the movie and just showed up on set. But, I’ve saved the best for last: Wes Bentley. You remember Wes Bentley, right? The guy in AMERICAN BEAUTY who thinks plastic bags are the most beautiful thing in the world? Well, just keep on remembering him in that movie.

Blackheart, along with his father, the Devil, are two of the weakest villains I’ve ever seen on screen. Blackheart is the son of the Devil. Shouldn’t he be all cool and powerful? Yeah, yeah, he can kill people with one finger. But who cares? He seems more like a whiny teenager whose friends are being picked off one by one. I am not scared of this guy. I never think for once that Johnny “Ghost Rider” Blaze wouldn’t kick the crap out of this guy in the final showdown (because, of course, there must be a final showdown).

Writer/director Mark Steven Johnson needs to turn in his WGA and DGA cards right now. The dialogue is awful. The plotline is barely present. And the acting is off-the-charts bad. The one good thing I can say about GHOST RIDER is that it looks utterly spectacular on Blu-ray. If you are going to watch this movie, at least try to see it in high definition.