Movie Review -- Ghost Rider

One Word Review: Disappointing.

One Sentence Review: Writers should never be allowed to be directors.

Went to see this with my son last night. We should have stayed home and watched the "Dead Like Me" DVD I borrowed from a friend at work instead. Cool special effects, but that's not enough anymore.

"Ghost Rider" is an example of what happens when somebody without talent a) tries to compress an entire years-long serial story-line into two hours, and then b) goes on to film it themselves. Not having anybody call bull-shit on you when you're seriously self-delusional results in a meandering, non-sensical plot, reliance on special effects instead of characters, and an audience that's falling asleep by the end of the movies. You think I'm exaggerating. I'm not, and it wasn't just me. Another child-hood memory smothered and soiled.

The movie did have three redeeming features: Nicholas Cage -- always a good actor, even when the lines he's given have all the passion and power of a dead hamster; and playing his love interest, Eve Mendes. She has other assets, but not enough to rescue this seriously flawed (but glossy) movie.