Yes, it’s the return of “the BIG western”, the one film genre that is more identified with Hollywood and American film making more than any other. As a huge fan, I’ve been more than a little annoyed that westerns have been out of fashion for many years. I guess our America-hating producers, directors and studio heads can’t stand the idea of being associated with movies that portray traditional values and inspire love for our country. But I digress…

Russell Crowe really stretches himself here as he plays Ben Wade, a violent, sociopathic leader of a gang of outlaws who royally screws up and allows himself to get caught by the local constabulary. Christian Bale is the poor rancher Dan Evans whom fate places right in the middle of the situation. Being rather desperate for a break, he uses the opportunity to try and turn his luck around and clear his debts by helping escort Wade to the town of Contention where he’ll be placed on a train (the 3:10 to Yuma, you reckon?), shipped out, and tried for a zillion murders.

The movie unfolds as a great “cat and mouse” game between the makeshift posse escorting this most deadly of outlaws…and his loyal, dedicated gang who are hell-bent on rescuing him. To that end, Ben Foster does an OUTSTANDING job as Wade’s right-hand psychopath, Charlie Prince, who reveals himself to be one seriously bad-ass mofo.

The action is top notch and the surrounding scenery is exquisitely shot, as is expected in “the BIG western”. More importantly, the acting is better than amazing. Crowe and Bale were perfectly cast and Peter Fonda is great as the grizzled old Pinkerton hired gun and, as already mentioned, Ben Foster rules the screen anytime he is on it.

All these positives aside, however, the movie has a serious flaw that I found to be aggravating enough to pull this down from a 5 star rating to 3 stars. Several times in the movie something would happen on screen that would cause me to wrinkle up my face and want to yell, “Bullshit!” Everything from characters acting WAY against their nature…or doing something WAY too stupid for their position…or just violating the laws of nature (such as a character that gets a really NASTY gunshot wound to the gut, loses a ton of blood, but suddenly seems good as new right after a bandage is placed around his belly).

These things were so glaring…and so UNNECESSARY! You could have easily written around all of these things without affecting the story in any way. But, no, they chose to be stupid and expect us, the audience, to be stupid as well. Sorry, but I ain’t buyin’ bushel of bat guano.

Let’s get the particulars out of the way so we can get back to what didn’t work. The movie starts out with a young daredevil (wrong movie) Johnny Blaze, and his stunt rider father Bart working the carny circuit. Johnny wants to leave this life behind to be with his sweetheart Roxanne and that’s what he plans to do. Johnny goes home to tell his dad and he finds him passed out. Johnny finds a note from his doctor confirming Bart is dying of cancer, which forces Johnny to look at his options. Leave dad and run away with the hotty, or stay and help dad in his last days… decisions, decisions. Well before Johnny can really make a choice, he’s approached by the devil himself, Mephistopheles (Fonda). He tells Johnny there’s no reason to choose he can have both. The devil tells him he will heal his father, so he can run away and all he has to do is agree to become his ‘Rider’, and surrender his soul. Johnny accepts and the next day his dad is completely healed… Yay! Not so fast, the devil always has a plan, and he kills Johnny’s dad anyway, as a sort of warning to Johnny that he’s not to have any attachments and he belongs to him now. So, Johnny no longer has his father and for fear of what he’s become, the girl he loves is left standing in the rain so he can ride off to fulfill his new destiny… As the devil’s bounty hunter, The Ghost Rider.

Jump about 20 years and Johnny (Cage) is THE top stunt jumper in the world, Roxanne (Mendez) is back in his life, the devil’s son Blackheart (Bentley) is on earth to collect on a debt owed the underworld. Mephistopheles comes back and turns Johnny into the rider to stop his son and collect the souls for him, and that about sums up the plot.

The effects in this movie are pretty good and it’s a good thing because the effects are the movie. The Ghost Rider transformation scenes are pretty cool and every scene that includes the bike looks great (especially on a big screen), but the Rider effects not so much. In fact at times they’re down right cheesy. I half expected the ghost teeth to start chattering like a cheap Halloween toy in a couple of scenes, they were so bad. The acting isn’t all that bad considering the dialog the actors have to work with… pretty crappy… There are some scenes that won’t be appropriate for children and the final fight has some pretty creepy elements to it, but all in all it’s a pretty good time at the movies. I’m not a fan of the character and I can honestly say I’ve never read a whole comic starring Ghost Rider, so it’s not fan boy hater-aide that lead to my rating. It was more like I had a good time but I doubt I’ll see it again kind of thing. But just like all comic book movies the door is left wide open to come back for more and hopefully by then the effects will improve and the cheesy element will be taken out all together.