An action movie without the action and twice the lead-up

Rating: 3/10 (24 February 2007)

I went into this movie with zero expectations, having not read the comic books and seeing the preview only once. However, coming out the other end, I wish I had not bothered.
Flaming skulls are cool, no-one is denying that; but this movie is not. Although the first point has been beaten to death, Cage sucks. He's got some good movies, granted, but this isn't one of them. This movie is just lame; the lines are cheesy, the characters are cookie-cut from the dough of Hollywood, and whatever cool fight scenes might have saved this movie are null. I can appreciate not having explosions at every turn in a movie, but this was one where I was consciously bored, waiting for the characters to stop being try-hard and cool and start blowing stuff up to entertain me. The flaming chain whip seemed like it had potential.
But no. Despite the lead-up to the dispatch of each of the four main baddies, each one is destroyed within a few minutes each. There are no cool drawn-out fight scenes which destroy half the city in the process, but rather the Ghost Rider is given powers so that he can end any fight before it gets good. I described it to my friends as, "an action movie without the action and twice the lead-up". Granted, the motorbike scenes are kind of cool, but the fact that the Ghost Rider is seemingly invincible takes any suspense out of it and just leaves you wondering how long until it's over.
You may think that at least the final fight scene would be cool. You would be wrong.
I could stand this movie if it had action in it - you know, like an action movie should - but it has extremely little. It is minute after minute of lame characters, uninteresting love interests, and boring dialog. The final scene made me cringe more than the entire movie thus far; it was just that predictable.
Just _don't_ waste your time.