Get Punched By Crappy Flaming Skull

Hey guys, it's Donnie...At this point I'm just starting to feel really bad for Nic Cage. Seriously, the guy just cannot win this year. He had two seemingly quality flicks that each lasted about two weeks in theaters. It was just announced last week that Ghost Rider has been pushed back from June 2006 to February 2007, and today Sony has given us our first glimpse of the big fiery skull in motion and (surprise!) it pretty much blows.

Granted we're really only getting two quick glimpses here, and it is in craparific flash, but to say that the effect fails to impress is putting it lightly. The flames are mediocre, there's nothing going on in his eyes, and his head seems completely disconnected from his body. Does the man have a neck? I can't quite tell.

Here's the real puzzler: Why bother showing us this at all? The movie's not coming out for almost 14 months, so one would hope that they're going to use that time to improve upon the special effects. And so why give us an early look at one of your principal effects this early in the game unless it's really going to knock us on our coal mining asses? My real fear is that this is the best it's gonna get, they've already settled on essentially this effect design and, perhaps most tragically, they're so proud of themselves that they want to show off what they've got. So sad.

Click it here to see the biker ghost of Richard Pryor. (Too soon?)....