Ghost Rider

This is a pretty goofy movie, but then it's based on a comic book, so what would you expect? Nicolas Cage plays the Ghost Rider, whose job it is to collect souls for the Devil, played by Peter Fonda. (I thought it was a neat touch having the old Easy Rider playing Scratch in this motorcycle movie.) Cage gets his job by making a deal with the devil, and, as you fantasy fans know, there's always a loophole. You just have to find it.

In about half the movie, Cage is doing his not-too-bad Elvis Presley imitation, delivering the lines the way he must imagine The King would have done them. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Sam Elliott, as a graveyard guardian, plays it straight, and very effectively. Eva Mendes plays Cage's love interest, and has a few scenes that seem to have come from some other movie entirely.

James Reasoner, as I've mentioned, always gets to this stuff ahead of me. James says that Cage's scenes with Elliott near the end are pretty effective. I'm not sure which specific ones he's talking about, but the one when "Ghost Riders in the Sky" came on the soundtrack sure worked for me.

The ending reminded me a lot of one of my favorite Robert Bloch stores, "That Hellbound Train." Here, it's just setting up the sequel.

Mindless and kind of fun. Check it out.