Ask any die-hard comic book fan and they will tell you that the artwork of a series makes or breaks the comic. Fans will suffer through any hodgepodge of a dark origin as long as the artwork is top notch and the comic delivers some dynamic action scenes. Can the same point be claimed of full length feature films starring $10 million dollar actors? Do the million dollar visual and aural effects of Nicholas Cage's Ghost Rider forgive the $2.95 script by writer director Mark Steven Johnson?

In Nicholas Cage's Ghost Rider stunt Johnny Blaze sells his soul to Mephistopheles in exchange for his father's life. This obviously causes a regrettable break up with his young love Roxanne, played by Raquel Alessi, who impressively delivers a more inept performance than J-Lo. Mephistopheles offers to release Blaze's soul if Johnny becomes the Ghost Rider, a supernatural bounty hunter made of flames and skulls, and with a voice of a dying lion. Ghost Rider's rival is not Mephistopheles himself, but Blackheart, the son of The Devil, just as evil and twice as ambitious as daddy.

This is not Mark Steven Johnson's Ghost Rider, or even Roy Thomas and Gary Friedrich's Ghost Rider; this is Nicholas Cage's Ghost Rider, as the movie is all about him and his love of the Ghost Rider comic series. Cage even wrote part of the screenplay, proving to the world that when it comes to writing and acting, he is no Woody Allen. Instead, Cage delivers his usual mannerisms (crazy eyes, scenery-chewing freak outs and slurred witticisms) and conveniently crafts these around the Johnny Blaze character.

Nicholas Cage, while a good actor with basic human emotion, has not mastered the art of disappearing into his role. Director Mark Steven Johnson tries to distract the audience from the questionable lead and shoddy script with some amazing special effects sequences. The Ghost Rider look is menacing and exciting, but his demonic adversaries leave much to be desired. The script is not only made up of repetitive action cliches, but also contains some glaring continuity problems. Despite all the talk of ghosts, demons and lost souls, the primary weapons used here are rifles, chains and little balls of fire. Yes, balls of fire which prove effective--somehow--even against the elemental spirit of water. Bad guys die on cue, with little thought as to any credibility the movie would respectfully give us.

Comic book movies, in theory, should be relatively easy to make. The adapted screenplay is already written, the fan base is hungry, and the director usually has free reign to rewrite the source material and forget any major continuity, simply because the "artwork" is that good. The Batman franchise was not necessarily credible but fun. The Spider Man movies managed to bring an element of realism into a fantastic concept. In Ghost Rider, Mark Steven Johnson never once convinces you that anything in this hellacious Marvel universe is real or entertaining. By the time Johnny Blaze disses The Devil, (played by Peter Fonda who apparently has nothing to do these days--not even the desire to give a complex Devil performance) telling him that he's an avenger of the "innocent" not the Devil's lackey, even the biggest fan boy realizes that nothing is truly at stake in this movie. The bad guys don't matter, as they are one-dimensional caricatures of evil. The protagonist is hardly scary or exciting, since the movie is far more concerned with Nicholas Cage and Raquel Alessi's forced sexual tension than how Ghost Rider appears the public.

The only epiphany to be had in the midst of all this hell is how little screenwriter Johnson cared to make Ghost Rider a meaningful film. In popular comic books, though the story may be simple, the artwork is always top notch and is a display of personal, artistic beauty. But you can't compare good artwork to loud noises and explosions. Ghost Rider is manufactured cinema, devoid of substance as well as style. The story is as subtle as a flaming skull--worse yet, there is no beauty or depth in this comic book's art. Grade: D