Wes Bentley's Ghost Rider villain Blackheart just might be the lamest antagonist in a Marvel movie. Nic Cage is a noted comic book fan and spent years trying to land a superhero movie. He was attached to Tim Burton's famously unmade Superman Lives as the title character and circled villain roles in both Joel Schumacher's cancelled Batman Unchained and Sam Raimi's Spider-Man. He finally nabbed his own superhero with Ghost Rider, but since the genre was in a weird place back in 2007, it didn't live up to its potential.
Ghost Rider follows Johnny Blaze, a stunt rider who signed a contract with the Devil to become his demonic bounty hunter. The horror tone of the material would have better suited to an R rating, but the resulting PG-13 blockbuster failed to satisfy fans or audiences. A mediocre script and forgettable action were just some of the big issues with Ghost Rider, but Cage returned for another swing with 2011's Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance. Co-directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (Crank) helmed the sequel/soft reboot, which had better action and a darker tone but still suffered from script and story problems.
Cage later ruled out the possibility of returning for Ghost Rider 3 and the rights later went back to Marvel, who introduced the character in Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D, played by Gabriel Luna. One big problem with the 2007 Ghost Rider is that the central villain, Wes Bentley's (Mission: Impossible - Fallout) Blackheart, never feels like much of a threat. This demon is the son of Mephistopheles (Peter Fonda) and wants to overthrow his father and take over Hell.
Ghost Rider is summoned by Mephistopheles to bring Blackheart back and has to battle his demonic henchmen too. It's a long-standing joke that Marvel villains, especially for some major MCU entries, were kind of lame compared to the heroes. Thor: The Dark World's Malekith the Accursed or Ant-Man's Yellowjacket are among the weakest, but outside of the MCU, Julian McMahon's Victor von Doom from 2005's Fantastic Four or Venom from Spider-Man 3 are also held in low regard.
Even with those examples, Wes Bentley's Blackheart just might be the weakest. For a powerful demon with the power to kill with a single touch, the character is simply never threatening, even when the film tries to dial up his menace with some CGI demonic features. While Bentley is a fine actor and has done good work elsewhere, it feels like he's cruising through the role, and only really comes to life in the moments when he's hamming it up. The Rider himself comes off as more threatening, meaning there isn't much of a catharsis when he finally beats Blackheart in the finale. Even if Ghost Rider's Blackheart was a great villain the movie would still have issues, but his lameness definitely doesn't help.