Insert Lame Pun Featuring the Word "Next" Here

Stacy and I decided to catch a movie last night after work. I am so used to seeing matinees and movies on weekdays that I often forget who goes to movies on Friday nights. Chiefly, a bunch of kids. I watched as date after date purchased tickets for Disturbia. Each boy hoping that the scary movie will land him some first or second base action. Man am I glad I don’t have to do that anymore. Speaking of Disturbia, the current viewing sold out as I sat waiting for Stacy. Good thing we were going to see Next instead. I was surprised at the lack of patrons when we entered the theater. I’m thinking that Disturbia will beat Next in this weekend’s box office fight. Ah well, no biggie.

Next stars Nick Cage as a Las Vegas magician, Cris Johnson (stage name Frank Cadillac,) that just happens to have the ability to see two minutes into the future as long as it involves him. Julianne Moore plays the hard-ass FBI agent, Callie Ferris, who somehow knows about this ability (even though Cris keeps it private,) and wants to recruit him to track down a rogue Russian nuclear bomb. Jessica Biel plays Cris’ love interest, Liz, who is the first to break the basic premise of the movie because Cris saw her in his mind days in advance of meeting her. No real reason to mention anyone else except for Peter Falk, who I thought was dead and coincidentally looks like he’s on his last legs. His part as friend/father/roommate/fence/gay lover, (the movie wasn’t too clear on their relationship,) Irv, was short, but it was good seeing Columbo back on the big screen even for a few moments.

I liked the movie. It was entertaining. It did, however, have plot holes you could drive a truck through. For example, how did the FBI agent know about Cris’s talents and that they were genuine? How did the Russians smuggle a nuclear weapon into the country? Oh, that’s right, they had a friggin’ army on the docks. How did they create a well-armed militia in a Los Angeles dock without anyone noticing? Why did the Russians smuggle a nuclear weapon into the country? Why do they want to detonate it in downtown LA? Isn’t the cold war over? Were they part of a terrorist group of some sort? What was their agenda? How do they know the FBI is after Cris in an effort to foil their plot? Why do they pursue him with a single-mindedness bordering on obsessive when they presumably don’t even know what he can do? Why is Callie such a cold-hearted bitch? (Okay, that’s not a plot hole so much as a complaint about the stereotype the director shoe-horned Moore into.) Lastly, why set up a premise involving a strict time limit on Cris’ prescient ability and then blow it out of the water in the last five minutes of the movie?

The plot holes are really the only complaint I have about the movie. It had some great scenes that kept me engaged the entire time. It wasn’t until I looked back that I thought of the gaps in the story. Cris’ prescience set up some great chase scenes, such as the high-speed drive through the streets of Las Vegas. We get to see Cris demolished by a train in an unsuccessful attempt to cross the tracks, only to pan back to the road where Cris is gunning towards the tracks in reality. This time, he punches the gas harder and makes it by the paint on his bumper. Another thrilling chase scene takes place during a man-made landslide as he evades the FBI. Good stuff right until the end. My favorite scene (besides Jessica Biel dripping wet in a towel,) involved Cris using his power in a way that reminded me much of Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man of X-Men comics and X-Men: The Last Stand. We get to see him using his ability to choose diverging paths during his two-minute window. The result is 20-30 Nick Cages on screen poking around a deathtrap to find his love. Good stuff.

While not Nick Cage’s (or the supporting cast’s,) best work, this was a solid entry in the otherwise lackluster movie releases of the past couple of weeks. It is also notable that the original story, The Golden Man, was written by Philip K. Dick, author of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner) among other Hollywood-adapted stories.

I give Next two and a half fortune cookies on a scale that I just made up that doesn’t mean anything.

Ghost Rider? He barely Knew Her!

Okay, lame pun aside, he knew her pretty well. Stacy and I got a long-deserved break from the kids this week when we went to see Ghost Rider with Jon on Monday. We went armed with the knowledge that two good friends of ours did not like the movie. I quote, “The Punisher was better.” While I haven’t seen The Punisher (rated-R), I had heard plenty about it and knew that it fell somewhere between Daredevil and Fantastic Four among the latest crop of comic-inspired movies. I found it hard to believe that Ghost Rider could be that bad, considering how kick@## the previews looked. Then again, you can’t judge a book by its cover. You also can’t judge a book by what other people say about it. That’s why I don’t listen to movie critics. I lend a bit more weight to what friends say, but I usually reserve judgment until I have seen the movie.

In this case, I’m glad I did. Ghost Rider was much better than it could have been and nowhere as bad as some of the stinkers that Marvel has cranked out lately. It wasn’t even close to Spider - Man or X - Men levels of radness, but it rocked in its own way.

Let’s start with the visuals. No? You want to know about the story, you say. You want to know how compelling the characters were, you plead. Well too bad, non-existent, disembodied voice, this is my review.

The visuals were spot on. Never has a demon-possessed, flaming-skulled bounty hunter for the devil, with a flaming demonic bike of awesomeness and a death-dealing fiery chain of pain been translated so well between mediums. The initial transformation took a while to get to, but we were well served with some spectacular bike stunts in the meantime. The first time Ghost Rider made his appearance, you got a real sense of how painful such a transition might be as his flesh literally burns from his bones, leaving a grinning skull wreathed with hellfire behind. It wasn’t long after that his bike makes its own transformation with skeletal claws slowly reaching up to caress the gas tank, exhaust pipes elongating to bone-shaped tubes, down tubes morphing into solid chains, and a skeletal ribcage forming underneath it all. Very nice.

Ghost Rider’s origin was kept intact, something I feared would not happen. The previews made it seem like Johnny Blaze sold his soul to save the life of a girl, which would have been completely wrong. Thankfully, that wasn’t so.

The players ran the gamut from over-the-top comic book acting to genuine talent. This movie reminded me why I like Nick Cage. His Johnny Blaze had an excellent sense of timing and reaction. Cage lends a comedic quality to his characters that is understated yet supplies just the right amount of humor to offset the dark topic of the movie. Eva Mendes, who I maintain is near the bottom of the hot Latina starlet list (I would sooner take Salma Hayek, Vanessa Marcil, or Eva Longoria over her, though she is still miles above Horseface herself, Penelope Cruz,) played Roxanne Simpson, a hot newscaster with a smoking past with Blaze. Okay, I gotta stop with the fire references, this is too much even for me. She was all right, but I’m not much of a fan of hers anyway, so I paid more attention to her revealing outfits than her performance (boobtastic).

Sam Elliott, who was his usual crusty self, led the supporting cast. I wouldn’t have him any other way. His Caretaker was a joy to watch. Peter Fonda, looking extremely aged, played Mephistopheles né Mephisto. I expected his character to be over the top, but he was delightfully subdued, if a bit creepy uncle. I appreciate seeing Donal Logue in anything since his turn as a vampire lackey in Marvel’s first modern foray into comic book movies, Blade. Sadly, the rest of the supporting cast sucked donkey balls. Wes Bentley’s campy Blackheart led actors that were even worse in the villains’ camp. Besides Brett Cullen's Barton Blaze, the rest are completely forgettable.

If this movie lacks for anything, it is the plot, and boy does it lack. Mephistopheles sics Ghost Rider on Blackheart, who is searching for a contract that contains the power of 1000 souls. The previous ghost rider hid the scroll from Mephistopheles, fearing the power would make him unstoppable. Blackheart wants it to rule Hell and Earth with it. Now, why would a paltry 1000 evil souls from some abandoned town in the Southwest mean so much to the ruler of Hell? I would imagine that he gets more than that in a slow year. Not to mention, the state of the souls seems like it would devalue the deal. Wouldn’t 1000 innocent souls mean much more to Mephistopheles? Why can’t the ruler of Hell manage four demons, one of whom is his own son? Why can Ghost Rider handle them when he can’t? There were plot holes aplenty as the movie progressed. For instance, the legend says there is one ghost rider every generation, but the last ghost rider was from 150 years ago. Abuh? Wouldn’t it be nice if generations were spread out that far? I could dig living 150+ years.

So yes, the plot stunk, but oddly enough, that didn’t detract much from the movie. This flick did not pretend to be anything more than it was; a disposable bit of eye candy to while away a couple of hours. It didn’t aspire to be Oscar-worthy. It didn’t have its sights set on critical acclaim. It delivered itself as a guilty pleasure that I would certainly watch again, if for nothing more than seeing Ghost Rider blaze down the side of a building to land in the midst of a hornet’s nest of angry cops.

I give Ghost Rider four out of five flaming skulls on the meaningless scale that I just made up.