The basic plot is this … motorcycle stunt rider Johnny Blaze (Nicholas Cage) sells his soul to the Devil when he’s a teenager in order to save his father from dying of cancer. Cut to 20 some odd years later and the devil is ready to collect … transforming Johnny into the Ghost Rider, a bounty hunter for the Devil.

The basic story is there, but it never drew me in. This is based off a comic book series, so I really think the director, Mark Steven Johnson, should have had more fun with that … play with the camera angles more! That’s one of the great things about comic books … there are these extreme angles drawn that creates great tension. There’s no real tension in this movie. I think Sam Raimi gets that with his Spiderman movies … and Mark Steven Johnson could learn from that.

I liked some of the character development with Johnny Blaze though. The whole bit of this dare devil stunt rider listening to the Carpenters and eating Jelly Beans instead of drinking alcohol definitely made me chuckle a bit. I also liked the other comedic points interspersed throughout the movie … I actually think those were the high points of this movie.

There wasn’t any chemistry between Cage and Eva Mendes … They were both great in their roles. I just think it had more to do with that there wasn’t much of a role there for Mendes and that the love storyline wasn’t allowed to develop much.

Being into motion graphics and animation … you didn’t think I was going to not talk about the special effects did you? Well, there are definitely some good special effects in this movie. The opening title sequence takes you for a little bit of a ride … it’s a bit stylized and I think they could have pushed it more in that direction to really give it some vroooom. But the first effect that made me go “Oh, that’s cool!” was when you see how the main villain, Blackheart, kills his victims. It’s like he drains the life out of them. The other effect that I thought was really cool was when the villain whose element is water makes his entrance. He morphs into his human form through water and his first shot at creating one of his eyes slips down off of his face. Very cool! The other effects were very good, but those were the ones that stood out for me.

Overall, the movie was okay. I wouldn’t pay full price to see it, like I unknowingly did today. But if you like to see the latest special effects in movies and like to see them on the big screen then go to the morning or matinee movie. Otherwise, wait for the rental.