Okay, someone’s got to step up and do this; I mean, someone with Teflon skin and an only partially repressed geek spirit who still remembers what it was like to go to the movies and see Richard Pryor face off against Christopher Reeve in Superman III, or watch in horror as Demi Moore fought off Parasites in 3-D. Hell, back in the early 80’s bad movies occupied over half of the cinemas, with laughably cheap Sci-Fi shlockers and horror shockers fighting for screentime against softcore Euro-porn and sex-fueled teen comedies. This was all before the home video boom really took hold, giving these “subpar” movies a whole new venue, while offering cinema chains the opportunity to be more choosey with the films they featured. Of course, there’s still an overwhelming amount of bad movies that make it to the theaters, but, nowadays anyway, one can at least be assured that the cost of a film is at least more than what you shell out for your ticket; the same can’t be said of the stuff I grew up on.

So with that I give you Ghost Rider; a film that has been buried in negative reviews since its release. While this Nick Cage comic book adaptation isn’t exactly a Merchant/Ivory production, I think people have been a wee bit hard on this one.

The first thing one has to remember when seeing a film based on a comic book is that it is a film based on a comic book . Leave logic at the door, huddle up with some popcorn, and just shut off the bits of your brain that expect things to make sense. This is a move about a man with a flaming skull for a head, for crying out loud, not Schindler’s List! Sure, the fact that his motorcycle can ride up the sides of buildings is a little “fantastic”, but that’s the crux of the genre, people! Get over it! It’s also pretty “fantastic” when a goofball like Dante Hicks lands Rosario Dawson in Clerks II, but I’ve never heard anyone complain about that.

Ghost Rider is silly, yes, but it is meant to be just that. The film is chock-full of the sort of ironic, self-referential humor that borders on parody, so it’s obvious that none of this was really ever meant to be taken seriously. Sure, there are loads of jaw-droppingly silly moments, but none are nearly as ridiculous as Nick Cage’s hairpiece, and certainly not as distracting. One would think that with all of the money that went into the special effects in this film, they could have at least went out and bought the guy a better wig.

When I saw this one in theaters, I heard a lot of people belly-aching about how bad this movie was, but these same people were laughing hysterically during the film’s intentionally funny moments (of which there are many). So it seems to me that, despite their proclamations, a good chunk of the people I saw this film with really did enjoy themselves, but were, for some reason or another, almost ashamed to admit it aftewards. Cowards, I say! The whole lot of 'em!

I was really thrilled to get this one on DVD, as I just knew that the really nice FX work would shine on the medium, and I wasn't let down a bit. Sure, it's all a bit cartoonish, but - say it with me - this is a film based on a comic book. It's supposed to look like that! We get a respectable collection of bonus features on the single disc edition (reviewed here), but fans will definitely want to shell out the extra couple of bones for the the two-disc extended cut of the film.

You already know whether or not you’re a fan of this sort of thing, and, as of this writing, you’ve probably already seen Ghost Rider and made up your mind on way or another. Sure it’s not as “epic” as the Spider-Man franchise, nor is it as brooding or gritty as Batman: Begins, but it is a lot of fun if you let it be, and – take it from someone who’s weathered their fair share of Chuck Norris flicks in the theaters – you could certainly do much worse.

Then again, I'm the same guy who gave Daredevil 5 skulls, so...