Ghost Rider

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Wes Bentley, Eva Mendes, Matthew Long, Peter Fonda

Directed by: Mark Steven Johnson

RS: 1of 4 Stars

2007 Sony Pictures Action

If you loved Daredevil and I dare you to say you did, you'll marvel that director Mark Steven Johnson has done it again: taken a dark, twisted hero from the Marvel Comics playbook and homogenized him into a toy boy suitable for mass consumption. Nicolas Cage stars as Johnny Blaze, the motorcycle stunt driver who makes a deal with Mephistopheles (Peter Fonda). To stay alive -- after a crash sets his skull on fire -- Johnny will do the devil's bidding. He's haunted, of course, and Cage can do haunted with the best of them. But the computer effects that turn Johnny into the blazing Ghost Rider incinerate characterization. The real evil in this flick isn't Blackheart (Wes Bentley), the devil's son, it's the soul-sucking devil of modern cinema: Hollywood formula.