Ghost Rider. Directed by Mark Johnson (Who? Same guy did Daredevil and evidently didn’t learn anything… except plug A-list valkyrie Jennifer Garner into crevasse-seeking low-rider leather outfit, no small contribution to the Zeitgeist, which is Krau German for “freeze-frame” and those guys do know something about leather). Starring Nicholas Cage, Eva (woof!) Mendes, Peter Fonda (looking like Death Eating a Sandwich and, curiously enough, playing Death Eating a Sandwich).

Him who obeys me obeys: You’ll make about as much sense of this plunge into turgid Satanology as that guy Milton did (that’s Lou Milton, dude does detailing over at the car wash, big guy, tattoo…).

Well, Go …gosh-amighty. Any movie where Sam Elliott has two lines is worth watching. And, speaking of two and of lines, any movie with Eva Mendes is worth watching did I saytwo? …and here she serves both of them up in a series of unbuttoned down to here blouses, dickies, jumpers each one unbuttoneder down to here than the last though her character (Roxanne, if you can believe it) seems to have no function (other than the above down to here) on account of she doesn’t fight like Elektra (variously spelt: Daredevil) nor redeem like Angelika (Constantine): When she does finally pick up a weapon (sawed-off Winchester Model ’87 lever-action shotgun, the de rigueur arm of art for biker guys since Arnold spun one aboard his Harley hog in Terminator II ), it just goes snick-snick (much as this film does, more’s the pity). That you could take a Harley chopper (a pretty plain ol’ vanilla one at that, even when it mechanomorphs into the Deathmobile and, oh, yeah… listen, kids: Do not try riding yours in the canal the way Ghost Rider does!), Nick Cage (who can do it when he wants to), Sam Elliott (the gravelly-voicedest gravel-voice since Chill Wills and the bristliest bristly mustache in the New Old West and who steals Big Lebowski with two count ‘em two lines), up-scale, pneumatic floozie Eva Mendes (whom nobody even thought to get soaky wet then hang offen a water tower by one arm while the camera probe up her skirt), and a skeleton with his head on fire (no actual skeletons were harmed during the filming), and Peter Fonda fresh from the assisted-living facility but icon ever since Easy Riders (despite the subsequent mooing not much of a flick, by the way, except for the “Ah buh-lieves they is Yang-kee kuh-wee-ahs” line) for bikeritude and freesoulosity… that you could take all those and still churn out a boring (and incomprehensible) movie is nearly a Mortal, likely a Venal,surely a Banal Sin (to keep the pseudo-Christian ™ hermeneutical foofoo somebody has smooched over this thing like lumpy varnish).

Johnny Blaze (the theme does come from a comic book—not one of the better, either—though it never seems to seize the campy seriousness of that medium nor the power of the motionless moment) does motorcycle jumps on the carnie circuit with Dad, an Evel Knievel knockoff, the both of them squozen into those sissy-looking white leather jumpsuits. Dad’s got the Big Cee (much waving around of a pack of Marlboros ™, in case you miss it, you dummy; filmed in California) and hacking out his life in the shadow of death. Meanwhile, a pouty but adolescent Roxanne (sommeres they found a koréwith the same sinuous lips as Eva Mendes to be her young; the pre-adult Johnny gives no evidence of turning into the mature Nicholas Cage). One night a leather-dustered apparition (Peter Fonda and looking baaaaaaaaad; worser yet, his manifest immortality—on and off screen—suggests me haven’t seen his worstest) app-arises under the Big Top to offer Johhny a “deal”: his soul for Dad’s life …sign here… in blood. Guess we know who that is: Mephistozebub. Johnny signs. Dad recovers. Or not. Turns out a feller can’t trust Mephisto… who’da thought? Comes now the tricky part. I’ll go slow. Johnny serves the Devil but does not obey him. Complicated dogmatics here (Free Will; Preforeordestination): You can surrender your soul to the Devil but he can’t collect it or make you do bad stuff, either, except turn your head into a Bessemer furnace and mess with your former ex-girlfriend who doesn’t want you anyhow. Leave a trail of flames behind your bike, too, bro (although Marty and Doc Brown already patented this one). The good news: the Devil’s power is circumscribed! Maranatha! The bad news: he’s got a son, Blackheart, whose evidently…not! Anathema!

Somewhere in this tangle reposes the Holy Phone Book with the names of the Blessed. Blackheart wants it, like,bad. But the Sacred Scapulary has been hidden (under the sofa, where the Devil would never think to look) by former nineteenth-century Texas Ranger (Clint Costner… or something, played by the real Redeemer in this movie, Sam Elliott), now mascarading (in a cemetery, where the Devil would never think to look) as a gravedigger (“Alas, poor Bore-ick…”). On top of all this we smear, like the last globs from the peanie butter jar on a slice of stale bread, some half-digested Christian ™ dogmatics (I think Saint Anselm is listed among the writers) about Gog, Magog, Armageddon (variously spelt), the End of Days, the Whore of Babylon, the Pale Horse, the Little Foxes in the Vines, and the Athanasian Creed. Long and short of it: Johnny becomes Ghost Rider and cannot die, must take on Blackheart and his minions, then after that other lowering, slavering, ravening evil presences (presentiment of a sequel here breathed in like a whiff of brimstone… hey, “Brimstone” be a good name for the next bad guy!), has to give up the nubile Roxanne, but gets a cool Harley to ride (along with a bewilderinglydiverse collection of leather jackets to wear, none of them the right one, though: 1929 Perfecto One-Star ™… you can look it up). Also his head catches fire, liability in some circles. Oh, yeah… his soul. Forfeits his soul. Buuuuuuuuuut… the Lord of the Flies turns out to be a kinda benign, kinda decent guy after all, so they agree to disagree since there’s apparently something eviler than Evil. Maybe. If there is, it’s wearing tassle loafers.