The Shadow Reviews

The Shadow is an overlooked film that never actually got the attention it deserved. Sure, this is a film which does has it's flaws, and it has plenty, but in the end it is entertaining and good looking fun ride to sit through. Actually i myself even prefer The Shadow over Tim Burton's vision of Batman, which was much more popular creation as a film back in 90's.
As a character The Shadow bears many similarities to Batman. These both are handsome and rich bachelors who under their daily presence hold dark secrets and powers that not many would even dare to speak of. Biggest difference between Batman and The Shadow is their origin story. Alec Baldwin's Lamont Cranston is a gentleman with a tortured soul and a tortured psyche. He is a man who has done his share of evil and now he is sort of trying to redeem himself. Bruce Wayne was instead complete opposite, he himself was a victim and tried to revenge his parents death by cloaking himself as a Batman. What these both men share is their wounded psyche and that makes them quite interesting as a characers.
Russell Mulcahy is a perfect choice for this kind of material. He has proven to be talented when it comes to this kind of visually lavish films. He might not be the best director when it comes to actors or coherent plot, but at least he knows who to make good looking entertainment. This is a film so great looking that at times it seems that it could have been directed by great Brian De Palma and when you look at the credits you actually begin to wonder why it isn't. There are so many frequent collaborators of De Palma like cinematographer Stephen H. Burum, writer David Koepp and producer Martin Bregman here in the credits. Some of the camera angles and techniques are also strikingly similiar to those in De Palma's films, but that is only understandable because at least it was filmed by talented Burum, who has very unique style as cinematographer.
The Shadow is fun to watch but there times when the acting is just plain corny. For example names like Ian McKellen and John Lone are mostly wasted in a thankless and one dimensional roles. Film relies on the shoulders of Alec Baldwin and he does not disappoint. Penelope Ann Miller is ok as an story's love interest and The Shadow's unexpected sidekick.
Overall this film feels a bit too rushed and messy to be entirely satisfying as a pure entertainment. It does have it's strenghts too and i would definetly recommend it to anyone who like these kind of noirish comic book adaptations.

This is actually a pretty good movie. Could stand up and surpass many of the Superhero movie's released in past 3 years. Alec Baldwin does an excellent job as in the role of the Shadow. Surprised to see Peter Boyle, Ian McKellen and Jonathan Winters in this one. Shiwan Khan has come to NYC with a Bomb and the Shadow has to find it. Great Special effects. 4 Stars

In a true 30's period style this comicbook/pulp adaptation visually looks really nice and captures the atmosphere of the time perfectly, if you think along the lines of 'Dick Tracy' and 'The Rocketeer' then you will get an idea of the feel.

The character of The Shadow isn't anything really special to be honest, its just a guy in a cloak with a fedora type hat on and he carries two guns, always did seem like a poor mans Batman. The character fits his world just right though in both his crime fighting form and his alias as a rich good looking 'Bruce Wayne' type, his lair has a neat little secret entrance and he lurks around in the shadows nicely hehe.

The sets are really well designed throughout and look stunning I must say, everything from costumes to cars are beautifully done and recreated, it is obviously sets but that adds to the charm and works much better than cgi. There is of course some cgi present throughout which swings from being reasonable (looking back now) to abit hokey as it would be though but it still just about works today.

For some reason though we have another crime fighter who must face off against Genghis Khan or a relation of Khan, even though this character is from the original comics its odd how other characters have also had to fight Khan eg. 'Hellboy', what is it with Khan?

Still this is great fun and looks slick with a good casting choice in Baldwin for the main role, he looks perfect for the part of 'Cranston' the playboy and actually could well have been a good Bruce Wayne too I'm sure. This really is how 'The Green Hornet' should been approached instead of the geeky farce it was, shame The Shadow failed at the box office.

This was one of the weakest exploits to monopolize on the superhero franchise that I have ever seen. Making no attempt to make this film cohesive with the serialized comics or the radio program, The Shadow didn't need to be made. It would have been cool back in the 30's and 40's when the program was popular, but even big budget studios knew there was very little one could achieve with a vigilante that was invisible. Besides the cast being out of place and apparently out of mind in order to make this garbage, the plot was as invisible as its hero. Half the time I think they just made up stuff as they went along. The villain was cheesy, the effects made Evil Dead look like CGI, and there was nothing very amazing about any of this. At least Michael Bay peppers his suck fests with a few mushroom clouds. The only redeeming quality was a young Alec Baldwin, always fun to watch.

"Only the shadow knows...muahahaha" LOL! Wow, I was about 10 when I saw this.

Tulku: You know what evil lurks in the hearts of men, for you have seen that evil in your own heart. Every man pays a price for redemption; this is yours.
Lamont Cranston: I'm not lookin' for redemption!
Tulku: You have no choice: you *will* be redeemed, because I will teach you to use your black shadow to fight evil.

One of the original superhero characters. Particularly important in leading to the creation of Batman. The Shadow is a movie that was unfortunately a big screen debut made after the Batman movie, causing obvious comparison. But its still a good one. Cool effects, great production value, Tim Curry and Gandolf, plus Alec Baldwin in one of his coolest role.

The original Shadow existed in the form of radio shows and pulp novels. The character was one who dressed in a hat and cloak, carrying the ability to cloud men's minds (jedi mind tricks essentially).

Here the Shadow is Lamont Cranston, played by Baldwin. He is a crime fighter existing in 1930s New York, battling various criminals.

Things change when a decedent of Genghis Kahn comes in to town, with the plan for world domination (I hate it when that happens). His plan is simple, use a new type of bomb to destroy the city, and eventually become a new conqueror. Ambitious, but simple.

Dr. Roy Tam: I guess you would call it an implosive-explosive sub-molecular device.
Lamont Cranston: Or an Atomic Bomb.
Dr. Roy Tam: Hey, that's catchy.

The Shadow, using his various connections through men whose lives he has saved, figures out Kahn's plan and must hurry to stop him.

He also runs into some supporting characters played by Peter Boyle, Ian McKellan, Penelope Ann Miller, and Tim Curry.

I enjoy this movie because it is one I grew up watching mainly. It's a lot of fun, has a great look to it. Uses a lot of special effects to make the character work. Has a score by Jerry Goldsmith that works. The dialog is very comic book styled. And it has some humor in what it is doing.

This is an entertaining crime fighter flick.

Shiwan Khan: In three days, the entire world will hear my roar, and willingly fall subject to the lost empire of Shan Kahn. That is a lovely tie, by the way. May I ask where you acquire it
Lamont Cranston: Brooks Brothers.
Shiwan Khan: Is that mid-town.
Lamont Cranston: 45th and Madison. You are a barbarian.
Shiwan Khan: Thank you. We both are.

This was a pretty good flick and I liked the time period it was set in. The casting was spot on and in the end we were left with a pretty fun flick that will be able to hold up over the years.

Fun comic-book hero movie. Better than the non-visual radio shows. I liked the depression-era setting with detailed oriental villains. The invisible skyscraper was great fun. There's an action-packed climax. Impressive stuff.

An extroadinary action-packed adventure. A pure piece of fantacy, excitment and high-octane fun. Thrilling, spellbinding, funny and explosive. A real knockout.

terrible but fun

A little known character is given the big screen treatment in a very Indiana Jones-ish action adventure. I rather enjoyed it's irreverant humour and saturday morning serial feel...and Russel (Highlander) Mulcahy keeps everything cracking along at a fair pace. Some marvellous production design too.

One of those movies that gets worse with each viewing.

His cock nose was the best.

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!" A campy, noirish film, The Shadow is entertaining and action packed. Based on the 1930s radio show, the story follows Lamont Cranston, who fights crime as the masked vigilante The Shadow by clouding the minds men, but he meets his match when a descendant of Genghis Khan attempts to destroy New York City. Alec Baldwin, Penelope Ann Miller, and Ian McKellen lead the cast, but they don't seem that comfortable with the material. And the film itself has an inconsistent tone; as the mixture of comedy and action doesn't really work that well. Yet despite its problems, The Shadow is a unique and interesting superhero film.

As a way of introduction, I compared a couple crime fighters who were known to wear black. Batman was first created in 1939 in a comic book and definitely has some characteristics borrowed from The Shadow. The Shadow started off earlier in 1930 as a radio narrator to some mystery stories. Then by 1931, the character became the star of his own radio show, mostly written by pulp writer Walter Gibson, and for a time voiced by Orson Welles. By 1937 The Shadow developed to become what most people recognize today with the phrase, "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh! The Shadow knows ... " The radio show continued into the 50's, but the character was developed further primarily through pulp fiction novels. Zorro predates both of these dark cape and cowl crime fighters since he originally appeared in pulp fiction adventures in 1919. While there aren't a lot of similarities, there are enough to consider their common bond.

The story in this movie is quite similar to Nolan's Batman Begins, but I think Nolan has a much better handle on the idea of a darkly tortured hero. Baldwin does a good job once he returns to New York and becomes The Shadow. It's pretty embarrassing though that becoming The Shadow supernaturally transforms him. When he puts on his costume, all of a sudden his nose becomes very large and pointed and his eyebrows become very bushy. Technically The Shadow clouds people's minds and does not have the power of invisibility, but the way the effects come off in the visual media it seems like The Shadow is a combination of Batman and the Invisible Man. The movie makes some jokes about radio product placement that I didn't get during the movie. Most of the dialog is pretty silly, but some is enjoyable. It's quaint how all of The Shadow's operations are pre-computer era. There are mail tubes, gears and pulleys, and a small TV type screen. Some of the gadgets like the red signal rings seem like complete fantasy though. Curry is way over the top. He's too hammy for me. Lone shows he can't cover up a strange speech impediment he has, and is overacting most of the time too. Miller is alright, but just when you think her character is going to become stronger she fades into the standard pulp noir female role. Boyle and McKellen give solid supporting performances. Fun adventure, but nothing special.

A visually stunning and most enjoyable nostalgic film that is based on the character from the famous radio shows of the 30s & 40s, it concerns a murderous master criminal named Lamont Cranston, who controlled all the opium across Asia, he has been given a chance to redeem himself by a powerful Tibetan mystic that empowered him with an ancient mind-control technique that gave him the power of invisibility and the ability to cloud the minds of men, the reformed Cranston's penance for his own evil past and deeds would be to take this power and go out into world and fight evil, some seven years later Cranston is in New York City where he masquerades as a rich decadent playboy, but by night he transforms into the dark, mysterious crime-fighting vigilante known only as "the Shadow," he wears a big black hat and cape with a red scarf covering his elongated face up to his piercing eyes, he also carries two huge enormously lethal sliver automatic handguns. The role of Lamont Cranston and his dark alter-ego the Shadow is perfectly played by Alec Baldwin, in a low-key brilliantly understated performance, this time the Shadow must battle an evil megalomaniac Shiwan Khan, who is the last descendant of the legendary Genghis Khan, he possesses the same mind-control powers as the Shadow, he is played by John Lone in a fine turn as this new formidable arch villain who is planning on conquering the world, using his extraordinary mental powers and the aid of a atomic weapon that he is making Dr. Lane, superbly played by Sir Ian McKellen, a military researcher assemble for him, now it is up to the Shadow to stop Khan from destroying New York City and capturing the rest of the world. An exceptional supporting cast that includes Penelope Ann Miller in a alluring performance as the sexy Margo Lang the late Peter Boyle who gives a wonderful performance as Moe Shrevnitz the cabbie sidekick of the Shadow, Jonathan Winters as police chief Wainwright Barth delivers a droll performance and Tim Curry who gives a deliciously amusing turn as the sleazy Farley Claymore, solid direction by Russell Mulcahy and a fabulous original score by Jerry Goldsmith, a magnificent production design by Joseph C. Nemec III with cinematography by Stephen H. Burum that is exquisite, a entertaining fantasy that is filled with dazzling visual effects and tongue in cheek humor. Highly Recommended.

The shadow is so kick ass, but with a crappy story like this, your not going to get anywhere.

It's an OK movie, with some nice touches.

Remember this one? As a kid, I was obsessed to the point where I even bought the soundtrack on cassette.
Well, I'm all grown up now, and I put this one in the guilty pleasure category along with Wolf and every other 90s film that kinda sucked but I still enjoy.
Hey, at least I don't fucking like The Phantom.

this movie kinda dissapeared from everyone's mind however i have always liked it and watch it when i see it on the tube from time to time