With our 2 for 1 movie coupon in hand we decided to go see this knowing full well that it was likely to be pretty bad. On arrival at the movie theatre we found out that the coupon was not valid for the newest movies out. So that was annoying.

Well, it was pretty much as bad as I thought it was going to be. The good: Some mildly amusing bits, some pretty good special effects. The bad: A serious lack of action and a lack of real emotion. Nicolas Cage plays Johnny Blaze, who starts the film as a boy who learns his dad has cancer and so sells his soul to the devil to save him. Except there is no real strong bond shown between the two of them, and when he finds out his dad has cancer he doesn't even look that bothered. He then grows up to be a stuntman who, again, doesn't seem that bothered that he is cursed by the devil, looking upon it as a minor annoyance to him rather than being wracked with pain and anguish about it. He needed to go on some kind of journey as a character, going from tormented soul to accepting his curse and becoming the Ghost Rider, but he just kind of stumbles through the film taking it all in his stride.

And when he does finally "flame up" and become Ghost Rider - the action mainly consists of shots of him transforming and then killing one of the baddies, there aren't really any extended fight scenes - but, to be positive, what scenes there are are pretty cool and the effects are definitely top notch.

So on the scale of comic book movies it is better than Hulk, worse than Fantastic Four, probably an a par with something like Daredevil. Finally, as much as it was OK, I wish they would make the effort to try and make the step up and put as much effort into these non-A-list comic book movies as they do X-Men, Batman or Spider-Man. Surely there are A-list directors who would jump at the chance to tackle this kind of film - for a start how about trying to get Steven Spielberg for Captain America? But for now, as this seems to have broken box-office records (somehow) they will be happy to churn out films that are just "good enough" to make a bit of cash, and never raise the bar and aim for excellence.

Essential Ghost Rider, Vol. 1 (Marvel Essentials) author: Roy Thomas,Michael Ploog,Jim Mooney,Tom Sutton,Herb Trimpe,Gerry Conway,Len Wein,Marv Wolfman

Ghost Rider: Road To Damnation author: Garth Ennis,Clayton Crain