Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
Based on the 1930s comic strip, The Shadow is put up against his archenemy 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 rescue with explosive results.
The Shadow is a reasonably handsome pulp superhero adventure with Alec Baldwin committing to the role and strong period production design, but it never fully escapes its generic 1990s superhero movie trappings. The plot is derivative and predictable — villain wants to take over world, hero stops him — with thin characterization. The cinematography captures a stylized 1930s New York atmosphere but doesn't push beyond competent genre work. Novelty is limited; the radio serial source material was distinctive in its era but the film adaptation plays it fairly by-the-numbers for mid-90s comic adaptations. The ending is abrupt and unsatisfying, failing to deliver a climax commensurate with the buildup.