Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

A movie I borrowed from a friend that said I had to watch it. I wanted to see it in the theatre when it came out but never got around to it. After seeing it I am glad I didn’t waste my money on it.

This is the story of a teenager that makes a deal with the devil to be his pawn. After the transaction he leaves the circus and becomes a motorcycle daredevil jumper (that cannot die). Later on the lead has to honor his deal with the devil and becomes an undead skeleton at night when he is around evil or humans that have done evil things. In this form he does the devil’s bidding. Kind of weird since if he was the pawn of the devil; wouldn’t he attack good people and good things? Oh well, not my story.

The story itself was good, just not the telling of the story. It was a beautiful story of a man that makes a mistake and redeems himself. He goes through many steps to get there and for a story, in its basic form, it accomplishes that. But that is as good as it gets. First the pacing is poor. I was bored for most of the movie. I would say it was half boring and half interesting. Only a few scenes had action. I really think a third of the movie could have been left on the cutting room floor, it just was not necessary.

The direction was horrible. The actors were inconsistent from scene to scene. From time period to time period. From character to character. I know it was direction because it wasn’t just Nicholas Cage, it was every main character that fluctuated. Even the CG characters lack a lot and could have been an amazing character, instead he was just a cg character that lacked a reality to him that the anime genre has succeeded in doing for their fake characters for decades.

Now for Nicholas Cage. Wow. Where to begin.
This was the worst performance I have seen from him. I partially blame the director but there was a certain amount of energy from him that seemed to be there at times and wasn’t there at others, for seemingly no reason. If the character was a schizophrenic (and the other characters reacted to his schizophrenic behavior) then I would understand. But that was clearly not the case. It was so inconsistent from boyhood to all the parts of his adult life. Even the Ghost Rider (Skullhead) was a completely different personality, and it should not have been. It should have still been Nicholas Cage. I like some of his films and performance, I hated his performance in this movie.

The other actors were not too impressive either, with one exception. The father at the beginning seemed to have left a memory and I liked how he played his role. He really felt like a real single father and had real character.
No one else left any impression on me. It was a bunch of forgettable performances. You had better performances out of a terminator then some of these hacks. Ya I know, I really did not like this movie.

The character development was ok, not great due to the poor acting described above, but we did get to know a little about each of the characters. Blaze’s development was of course the best. We really got to know what made him what he was on the outside. But with his poor acting and the poor directing, it was very confusing as to what was going on inside this character, many time the most fascinating part of the character.

Special effects are good, just not amazing. It feels like it is there for flash but not really for the story. So the true value of special effects is lost (except in the jump scenes in the beginning.) But no major complaints, just minor.

The key players
Director: Mark Steven Johnson
Writer: Mark Steven Johnson
Music: Christopher Young

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Ratings
Yahoo users: B
Yahoo critics: C-
Metacritics users: 5.6
Metacritics critics: 35
My score: 1.46

Running time: 110 minutes


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Recommended: No

Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older