Synopsis
Based on the 1930's comic strip, puts the hero up against his arch enemy, Shiwan Khan, who plans to take over the world by holding a city to ransom using an atom bomb. Using his powers of invisibility and "The power to cloud men's minds", the Shadow comes blazing to the city's rescue with explosive results.
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Cast
- Alec BaldwinLamont Cranston / The Shadow
- John LoneShiwan Khan
- Penelope Ann MillerMargo Lane
- Peter BoyleMoe Shrevnitz
- Ian McKellenDr. Reinhardt Lane
- Tim CurryFarley Claymore
- Jonathan WintersWainwright Barth
- Sab ShimonoDr. Roy Tam
- Brady TsurutaniTulku
- James HongLi Peng
- 75
Chicago Sun-Times
If you respond to film noir, if you like dark streets and women with scarlet lips and big fast cars with running boards, the look of this movie will work some kind of magic. The story itself may not be so mesmerizing, but who really cares? Style and tone are everything with a movie like this, which wants to bring to life a dark secret place in the lurid pulp imagination. - 67
Austin Chronicle
The film still looks great, as does Baldwin, but the tense tale of the fight against Shiwan Khan -- a cooly evil John Lone -- becomes a silly, sloppily developed world takeover story pulled from the Batman TV show, characters stall, and the humor goes broad. - 63
ReelViews
The Shadow's problems have nothing to do with the basic premise; rather, they are flaws in execution. The setup promises something more invigorating than it delivers. - 60
BBC
Despite its shoddy script it does benefit from superior art direction that looks a million dollars. - 60
Empire
The film has a wonderful super-production look and Baldwin's Shadow breezes through via nifty invisible effects, but the plot never really gels, and for an action fantasy is rather cold. - 50
Washington Post
The Shadow does have its moments, which include a googly-eyed mad scientist portrayed by Tim Curry, a smoking billboard for Llama cigarettes and an animated dagger capable of biting he who wields it. Of course, they too are crushed under the weight of this overproduced but underwhelming monolith. - 50
TV Guide Magazine
THE SHADOW is the worst kind of homage, recreating childhood enthusiasms in a manner so clunky and unsophisticated that it's actively off-putting, while entirely missing their essence. - 40
The Dissolve
The Shadow was one of the original pulp heroes, but his movie is more copycat than pioneer.