A teenage motorcycle daredevil (Matt Long) sells his soul to the real Devil (Peter Fonda) to save his father, who dies anyway. Years later, grown up into Nicolas Cage, he’s called on to help bring down Satan’s ambitious son (Wes Bentley). Writer-director Mark Steven Johnson (adapting the Marvel comic) answers the question we’ve all been dying to ask: What if Evel Knievel had made a deal with the devil? Johnson might have diverted some of his CGI budget to hire a writer to come up with a story with some internal logic—then he could match the effects to the story rather than vice versa. And having a powerhouse star like Cage on board, only to replace him for long stretches with a flaming animated skeleton, is a dumb miscalculation. Eva Mendes, Sam Elliott and Donal Logue stand kibitzing on the sidelines.
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