The Shadow

Year of release : 1994

 

Run time : 1h43min

 

Genre : Fantasy / Action / Adventure / Mystery / Thriller

 

Cast : Alec Baldwin, Penelope Ann Miller, Ian McKellen

 

 

The movie is based on the magazine and radio show,The Shadow, started in 1930,which apparently was the idea behind creating Batman !

 

Lamont Cranston is a villain. He controls the opium trade all across Asia.

He is taken by the Tulku,and offered to be trained by their master in the art of mental powers as redemption for the evil done, to fight it now with good.

 

7 years later, he is in New York,fighting bad guys. When he becomes The Shadow, a character most New Yorkers think is made up,his face changes, as the Tulku master said, his face changes in battle, the beast within surfacing.

We see him recruiting the man who's life he saves, giving him a ring, and a secret password to identify him and the other Shadow agents.

He is always late to his dinners with his uncle, and the man is baffled as to why is he always late considering "he does nothing all day".

 

As they talk, he sees Margo Lane, and is completely taken with her. His uncle is advising him to stay away from her ,as she is "strange, and hears voices".

Lamont is about to find out as he goes out with her, that the voices she hears are people's thoughts,mostly his.

 

The very same night, Shiwan Kahn appears in a museum in New York, with thoughts of world domination, controlling people's minds, making them do what he wants.

Turns out he is a failed version of Cranston, as in, he is one of the villains the Tulku master couldn't turn good.

 

Kahn is trying to recruit Cranston, and as he fails, sends Margo under his mind control to kill him, while kidnapping her father(a scientist), as he wants a bomb made.

 

This is one of the movies I loved growing up, and although I didn't find as amazing, I still enjoyed it.

 

I personally would have liked to have seen his training by the Tulku,but it skips to 7 years later.

Also, I don't understand how the bad guy,Kahn, who just arrived in New York, was able to hide a big building for years.Also,was he ancient or not,he said he knew of Cranston from his master,who trained Cranston before he trained him.

 

The actors were fine.

 

The visual effects were mostly fine, again, the first one seemed a miss(with the Tulku master disappearing), and I thought the whole movie was gonna be like that, but that was the only time.

I liked how at times the movie was shot in the Brian de Palma style, framing the characters against the background using a canted angle shot,looking very stylish.

 

I didn't care for the soundtrack.

 

I loved the Art Deco look of the 1930's New York. It reminded me of the '80's-'90's Batman with the set design which seemed to have been filmed in the studio.

I liked Penelope Ann Miller's furs.

 

Rating : Worth a watch !