Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

In this sequel our disaffected anti-hero Johnny Blaze (Cage) brings us up to speed on the backstory over a crudely animated montage. Fortunately, soon enough Blaze’s head explodes into flames and he’s roaring around Eastern Europe as Ghost Rider on his blazin’ motorcycle snapping flamin’ chains around evildoers and making them explode into oily clouds of embers. There’s also a hot Euro MILF whose boy is the spawn of Satan who the bad guys want to groom into being the Antichrist. I suppose that’s about all of the story you need before it starts getting in the way of the fire. And there’s a lot of CGI fire in this puppy. It’s like an action screensaver for stoners. “Dude! Fire! Fire! Fire!” Unfortunately, while the action does have the Cheetos-stained fingerprints of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor all over the place (directors of the deliriously twisted Crank and Crank: High Voltage), the craziness you’d expect from those two seems a li’l repressed. While the flaming bits work well enough, there’s really not much else to recommend here to anyone who isn’t sparking up a bowl before going into the theater. Cinemark 14 and Feather River Cinemas. Rated PG-13