See it for the drama, not for the action.

Rating: 4/10 (25 February 2007)

First of all, let's get something out of the way right now; you don't need to be a fan of comic books to see this movie. Don't worry if you've never seen or read a comic book in your life; this movie will explain everything you need to know about Ghost Rider.
With that out of the way, on to the review! I was really looking forward to this movie. I, myself, am a huge Ghost Rider fan. I mean, come on, it's a guy who can transform into the spirit of vengeance. What's not to like? And from what I saw, they seemed to be pulling no punches making the movie. So it's safe to say I was pretty excited.
All in all, I was pretty let down.
The problem with this movie is that it seems to be suffering from a severe case of split personality. One personality is a charming, likable fella, and the other personality is a REALLY BAD MOVIE.
Ghost Rider is about a man, Johnny Blaze, who finds out his dad is going to die, so he makes a deal with the devil to save his life. The devil screws him over on it, but a deal's a deal, and Johnny finds himself with more than he bargained for. Mainly, he finds himself transforming into the "Ghost Rider", Hell's bounty hunter, and hunting Hell's escaped demons.
Nicholas Cage is great as Johnny Blaze. The way he plays the character is as an impulsive, "devil-may-care" thrill seeker, a man trying to honor his fallen father while atoning for the sins in his past. He comes off as a charming and sympathetic character, and the supporting cast around him is great. The humor, especially between Cage and his love interest, Eva Mendes, is pretty spot on. And on the other side of the board, the villains are pretty damned cool.
And then we come to Ghost Rider. I never thought I would ever have to say that a flaming skeleton in a leather jacket is the low point of the movie, yet here we are.
In short, when Johnny transforms into the "Ghost Rider" and goes gunning after the bad guys near the middle of the movie, things get really dumb really quick. Every line out of the creature's mouth is a painfully bad one liner. Like, CRINGEWORTHY bad. Stuff that got rejected out of comic books bad. Which would be okay, since we're watching these scenes for the action, not the intelligent dialog. But Ghost Rider completely fails at delivering anything resembling action, too. Apart from a couple of cool chase scenes, Ghost Rider is BORING. The fight scenes between the Rider and the demons last maybe a few seconds each, just long enough for Ghost Rider to do something vaguely interesting with a flaming chain. Seriously, there's nothing else going on. Even the final fight, with the main evil baddie, Blackheart (Wes Bentley), turns into just the bad guy standing there while Ghost Rider throws flaming snowballs at him.
Overall, a very disappointing movie. If you like Nicholas Cage, then I'd see this just for some pretty decent acting. However, if you want to see something with action in it, then I'd probably see something else.