Ghost Rider is the latest Marvel comic to hit the big screen and while I wouldn't necessarily call it Fantastic 4 bad, it isn't anything to get too excited about.

Ghost Rider features Nicolas Cage as Johnny Blaze, a motorcycle stunt man who, after making a deal with the devil years earlier, has the ability to transform into Ghost Rider, a fiery skull-headed super-hero with wheels of flame. Throughout the film, Blaze is thrust into one adventure after another (he's pitted against the devil's son) as well as a few romantic situations (at the hands of ex-flame Roxanne Simpson–played by Eva Mendes).

Ghost Rider is in truth a pretty stupid movie, and it isn't particularly well conceived. This is what happens when you put a hot comic book commodity into the hands of a film maker who isn't up to the challenge.

With all due respect to director Mark Steven Johnson (he's actually a pretty nice guy), he dropped the ball with this one. I'm not an avid reader of the Ghost Rider comics, but as a film, Ghost Rider is very sloppy. Many of the action sequences have a strange rhythm and poor continuity, and the ending of the picture goes out with a whimper rather than a bang. The love story is just a flat out heap. Perhaps Johnson could have taken a cue from Guilermo del Toro's excellent Hellboy. It presented similar themes in a much more compelling and entertaining way. Ghost Rider just isn't big enough. It has virtually no scope. Superhero movies belong on a larger canvas. But then I don't know why I expected more. Johnson's own Daredevil suffered from the same flaws.

Nicolas Cage is actually somewhat amusing as Johnny Blaze. He brings a zany energy to the part and I must admit, he's fun to watch. Eva Mendes is just awful as the love interest. This is a horribly miscast part. It's a shame too because Mendes is a lovely actress and she can be likable. In Ghost Rider, she's neither. Wes Bentley (he showed a lot of promise with an outstanding turn in American Beauty) is positively boring as the villainous Blackheart. He fails to provide any real sense of menace as the devil's son. Donal Logue has a few amusing moments as Mack, Blaze's right hand man while a terrific Sam Elliot tries awfully hard in a role that serves no other purpose but to fill the audience in when they're not entirely sure what the hell is going on – which is for a goodly portion of the film.

The special effects are hit and miss. I liked Ghost Rider's bike. Watching it blaze down the highway while on fire proved to be pretty damn cool. There's also a nifty sequence at the end of the film in which hundreds of spirits are released from an eternal tomb. It reminded me of the climax of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Sadly though, the most important special effect of the entire movie falls completely flat. I'm referring to Ghost Rider himself. I've seen Play Station graphics that are far more impressive. Completely uninspired. This point is driven home over and over as Cage is so damn loopy and enjoyable as Blaze, that every time he turned into Ghost Rider, I got the yawnz and wanted Blaze back.

Ghost Rider isn't a total waste of time and I attribute that mostly to Cage's goofball antics. As an actor, he likes to breathe life into a character any way he can, particularly when the movie around him seems to be fizzling out altogether. He did it last year in The Wicker Man and he does it again here.