The first Ghost Rider movie was a total piece of shit. Last year, the nerd media reported some heartening news about the Ghost Rider sequel: everything was going to be completely different. Crank and Crank 2 directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor were brought on to deliver a much-needed shot of steroids squarely in the franchise’s naked eyeball, and their success rate with the finished product is really quite remarkable: Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is 40% of a very good, very weird superhero movie. Nicolas Cage's performance is so different from the generic, bad hairpiece-laden drivel of the first film that they might as well have hired a different actor. This is Cage in full-on Bad Lieutenant mode, creating a spastic, twitchy ode to substance abuse. Still, 60% of the film is very bad. There’s way too much exposition, and the action can be really hard to follow. (Important aside: Absolutely do NOT see this movie in 3D. Modern digital 3D works best, as in Scorsese’s Hugo, with long, stately tracking shots that allow the eyes to take in the depth and detail of a scene. Neveldine/Taylor’s jumpy editing style in 3D is a disaster for your eyes. Even I—who have never once gotten motion sickness in real life—had to avert my eyes out of the threat of nausea during a couple of racing scenes.) But if you have more than a passing acquaintance with the history of comic books, you’ll understand how that 40-60 split between mad genius and corporate dreck is highly appropriate. Like those early comics which had a faint whiff of danger, of art, creeping in between the panels, Neveldine/Taylor manage to sneak a little bit of real filmmaking into the Marvel movie crap. (PAUL CONSTANT)