'Ghost Rider' a good bad movie

Of all the bad horror/fantasy/sci-fi/action pictures Nicolas Cage has cranked out over the last decade, "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" is the Nic Cagiest. A goofy, gonzo thrill ride, "Vengeance" is a bad movie sequel so bad that it's good -- a bad movie that's almost a great bad movie.

It's still a profoundly silly mash-up of comic book and quasi-religious "prophecy" about a motorcyclist who sold his soul to the devil, who transforms into a flaming avenger hurtling out of hell when the need arises. But this time around, Cage and everybody else on board are in on the joke.

Credit the directing duo of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, action auteurs who go by the moniker "Neveldine/Taylor." For jacked-up action, the guys who made the "Crank" movies (GREAT bad movies) have no peers. In fact, they should call themselves "The Crank Brothers." It fits.

In "Vengeance," the "Rider" (Cage) is haunted by the life he now leads. But a boy (Fergus Riordan) borne of the devil (Ciaran Hinds) needs the Rider's help. Satan, who wears double-breasted suits and alligator shoes, needs the kid to fulfill a prophecy.

He has commissioned Corrigan (Johnny Whitworth) to grab the kid. A wine-swilling biker-angel (Idris Elba) and the boy's mother (Violante Placido, as ineffably gorgeous as her name) are all that stand between the devil and the boy who "completes" Satan's grand design.

Cage is hilariously wound-up throughout this sequel -- manic, motor-mouthed and bug-eyed. The co-directors augment this with jump-cuts that make Cage move with the supernatural jerkiness of a Japanese ghost. Think "The Ring."

And the jokes? A lot of them land. One demon decays everything he touches -- wood and flesh rot, metal rusts and crumbles. Then he picks up a Twinkie, and ... nothing happens.