I was getting into a very "stuck" place psychologically today (I was describing it as "mental constipation"), and just couldn't stand to spend another night poking around for yet more not-really-what-I-want-to-do jobs to send off resumes that might as well not exist. So, I told The Wife and The Girls that I was off to see "Mr. Saganaki-head" (yes, I do think that everytime Nic Cage turns into Ghost Rider, the whole theater ought to shout "Opa!").Ghost Rider came very highly praised by
polaris93, and while I did not find it the tour de force that she did, it was certainly an enjoyable movie, which hit its "world tone" (always important for comic book adaptations) early and stayed on mark the rest of the way. I think one of the best things about this was the fequent voice-overs by Sam Elliot ("The Caretaker"), which really helped pull things along. I would have, personally, liked for them to have fleshed out a bit more the "demonic context" in which they were operating (they came close at one point with the books), but those sorts of details are no doubt more important to me than 90% of the audience, I'm sure.I wonder how many of these Cage has been optioned for. There certainly seemed to be lots of room for sequalization here, and I'd be surprised if this ended up as a one-off (especially as wel as I understand it's doing at the box office).
There were only a few scenes that I thought they blew it on (I did not believe that Cage/Blaze was actually that ripped in the shirtless scene with the mirror, for instance), but in one case I guess it allowed a clean break from his stunt-show career (I'd be spoiling to give more details). The scene with Roxanne getting tanked while waiting for Johnny also seemed pointless, especially since she did not seem to be suffering any after-effects the following morning!.
Anyway, a good, well-balanced film with reasonably solid acting from several recognizable stars. More than adequate special effects (although I sometimes felt that I was watching an episode of Charmed at places), and one really really cool stunt (even if that was all CGI with the helicopters). I'm glad I got to see it on the big screen!
