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The Shadow

The Shadow

List Price: $14.98
Your Price: $11.98
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Terrific, underrated movie ... but full screen? Please.
Review: The title says it all. The movie itself gets 4 to 5 stars; the studio gets minus two or three for issuing a widescreen movie in fullscreen format. At least give viewers an option to see the whole film. Save your money until that comes out, or satisfy yourself with 66% of pretty good.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The seed of wide screen adaptation bears bitter fruit!
Review: I want to like this film completely....to give it five stars. It really is well produced and acted, but I can't get my head around the portrayal of Lamont Cranston as a former opium dealer who is converted by a young, prodigal Dalai Lama into the hero we know as: The Shadow.

Alec Baldwin does a good job as Cranston, playing the part with wit and an entertaining offhand quality that suits the part. However, I'm not so sure he portrays the Shadow himself...that's DEFINITELY one of his longer-nosed brothers in the transitional scenes, and the make-up obscures the Shadow actor's real features completely. The Shadow character also doesn't "move" like Alec Baldwin does as Cranston. We almost never see any closeups of the Shadow's face as well.

However, storyline-wise, acting-wise and as pure entertainment, this was one of the better popcorn movies of 1994. Penelope Ann Miller is a competent Margot Lane, the art direction is excellent, and there's a dolly shot in here that will have just about every movie tech-freak baffled.

John Lone's portrayal of a descendant of Genghis Khan with equal ability to Cranston's is suitably arrogant and cold-hearted, a mindset I find a LOT of Lone's character's possessing over the course of the last decade or so...

Ian McKellen's first major popcorn movie role was here too, playing Margot's father, a sceintist, and Tim Curry, (AGAIN!) plays a smarmy, foolish scientist colleague of McKellen's that hooks up with Lone's megalomaniac Khan descendant.

When you get right down to it, this movie is FULL of moral dilemnas....Besides the question of Lamont Cranston's opium connection, there's the rather sick fictional conceit that an oriental could be responsible for the creation of the atom bomb, and the way Lone's Khan is defeated in the end is VERY cruel! Perhaps this is payback for the character he played in "The Moderns".

Other players in the movie are Jonathan Winters and Peter Boyle, Winters playing Cranston's Uncle, the chief of police, Boyle playing one of The Shadow's sidekicks. You'll also probably recognize Arsenio "Sonny" Trinidad from "Batteries Not Included" as one of Khan's henchmen.

All in all, a VERY interesting flick.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: For the Widescreen fans.
Review: While I am a widescreen lover. It should be noted that The Shadow was originally filmed in FULL FRAME. The intended Aspect ratio for theater was 1:85.1 the full image was matted for theaterical release. So your not really losing any image like you normally would. This was also done with the Batman films.
While widescreen will always rule wether you lose picture or not ( Due to the fact that theaterical/Directors presentation is what matters more) it's important to let people know who would like to own this film on DVD that the issue is not that bad.
1. It's Full Frame not Pan Scaned ( Your not missing any image)
If you must have the widescreen image make your own 1:85.1 mats.
2. It probably won't be re-released by Universal any time soon.
Poor Box office and Vhs/Dvd sales are to blame. Although it would be nice to see an Universal ULTIMIT EDITION 2 disc set featuring box Matted and Full Frame versions with extras.
3. This edition is almost out of print.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Handsomely produced, weak story.
Review: Alec Baldwin's 1994 role as the hero who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men is off shooted by a weak script, and a two comic book styled apperance that the film makers created for 1930's New York. John Lone's performance is hammy and unconvincing. Too bad.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Badly disappointed.
Review: I like this film. I like it enough to own it. I like it enough to keep it. I leave it to other reviewers to discuss its merits (and a couple of its flaws - it's not perfect). All I will say is that it is inexscusable that we can only get it pan and scanned and not letterboxed. A shame...

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Where's the widescreen version
Review: This is one of my favourite movies (see my earlier review below), but I must ask, why, oh why is there no widescreen version?

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: awesome
Review: this movie is the best of the series all the way going back to the 1940's
the only thing is that the characters are a bit stiff and by no a days the effects are a bit outdated altough some effects are very nice!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great shadow
Review: I love this film!!!Great acting,great characters and a great story.
You must see it...

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Supporting Cast And Costumes Are Its ONLY Redeeming Factors
Review: I really, really wish I could give this film a higher rating. I remembered watching it when I was younger and really enjoyed it. I really like the old Shadow radio programs and greatly enjoyed similar films from the same period (*Batman,* *Dick Tracy,* *The Rocketeer,* and *Who Framed Roger Rabbit*), but I suppose I'm just a bit harder to please than I was. At any rate, I thought *The Shadow* was downright painful to watch.

To begin with, I thought the plot was terrible. All-in-all, I think the idea of the last decendent of Ghengis Khan wanting to take over the world was both a bizarre choice and one that was so badly developed that I really couldn't figure out *why* he wanted to do it and so consequently lost interest in it. I thought the opening sequence in Asia was far to convenient a plot device and that Cranston's back story could have been done in a more artistically seamless fashion. On top of that, it seemed to merely gloss the surface of the events that happened there, raising more questions than it answered as you watch the rest of the film. There's even a brief flashback later in the movie that seems to relate to an incident that was never addressed in the opening sequence, or else was cut at a later time.

The supporting cast was perfectly adequate as far as supporting casts go, so I suppose there really isn't much to complain about there. I really enjoyed John Lone as Shiwan Khan, though I think he could have been a bit more meanacing than he was. Penelope Ann Miller wasn't bad as Margo Lane, but didn't seem to quite have the sophistication that the original Margo had. Jonathan Winters, Ian McKellen, and Tim Curry were all more than adequate in their supporting roles, as well. Unfortunately, Alec Baldwin is the least appealing actor in the film, though I will give him the credit that it really doesn't seem to be his fault. I think the ENTIRE cast suffered greatly from a bad plot and a lousy script, which left most of them with lack of depth and some terrible lines which no amount of great delivery could save.

The costumes, I *will* say, were beautiful. I thought the entire cast (and Alec Baldwin and Penelope Ann Miller *in particular*) always looked *fantastic* throughout the film. In fact, they frequently (and deservedly) stole the scenes from the scenes themselves, as even the sets were terrible. The latter was terrifically unrealistic and unimaginative with some horrible lighting effects until the film's conclusion at the Hotel Monolith, at which point they improved *drastically.*

Music, too, was painful, unfortunately, as the soundtrack was awful and included a laughable song sung in "The Cobalt Club" and some ridiculous Kenny G-ish muck playing when Margo and Lamont first meet. Surprisingly, the soundtrack was done by one of my favorite film soundtrack composers, Jerry Goldsmith. I can only think that he must have had some recent trauma to his ears from which he has since recovered.

Well, with this said, you can watch it if you want (and I'd certainly still recommend it for curiosity's sake if you're a fan of the other, similar, films I've mentioned above), but don't expect to be wowed or even seriously entertained by it. Watch it for the costumes and that's about it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: THE SHADOW!
Review: The Shadow is great moovi Y'all shou see it. One of my favorits The Shadow Rules. I only saw her on vhs but great moovi I give 5/5 in Y'all Ratin It accion packed and Peppy Ann Millar is pertty. My daddy says hubba hubba. Buy this moovi it wondefool.


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