Five years ago Nicolas Cage played the fairground stunt biker Johnny Blaze, the Marvel Comics superhero who made a pact with the devil (Peter Fonda) in the American west to save his dad's life and took on the alter ego of Ghost Rider, servant of Satan. I thought it rather good (admittedly a minority view). In this inferior sequel, shot on arid locations in Romania and the awesomely beautiful Göreme region of Turkey (where Pasolini made his Medea), Johnny is pressed by a biker monk (Idris Elba) to save a boy of holy lineage from Old Nick with the possibility of regaining his soul.

A wisp of a story with no variation in pace links cycle chases and violent battles. Cage whispers, rants and becomes literally incandescent, turning into a blazing skeleton when aroused, which is fairly often. His chief opponent, a biker of Irish extraction, is raised from the dead and given the power to bring instant decay to his opponents. The ubiquitous Ciarán Hinds brings a suitably demonic gravitas to the devil.