One day the Shadow will wake up... The film is so riddled with controversy, and it’s me now not so much about the plot as about the quality that the opinion about it changed throughout the viewing. From the very beginning, when there was an assassination attempt on a presidential candidate, I found it Bollywood-style. Then there were pros and cons, ups and downs, but about everything in order.
First, the story itself is really interesting and addictive. The idea is interesting, it cannot be said that in our time is unusual, the topic of secret experiments, attempts to create superhumans were massively used, but still stamping is not visible. The style of the film is also unusual, a kind of mixture of American thrillers and the monotony of European cinema. The cyclical nature of the plot, the stages that the hero passes, being either a murderer or a family man, do not get bored, although they are repeated repeatedly. But this is exactly the monotony that inflates.
The text in the picture is also a little, because of which the actors had to try to convey everything emotionally. It really worked. Cam Gigande with the utmost accuracy conveyed his hero, attempts to free his identity. He brought to the surface many questions concerning not only the film, about human memory, personality, about the mind in general and how it is connected with the body. Jonathan always plays his roles brilliantly in any film, all his characters are different, bright and charismatic. Dr. Reese was no exception, but he was given so little screen time that his charisma is barely discernible. Despite the fact that he is the main negative hero. No long monologues about his genius, his rightness and his desire to “fix” the whole world. He talks about it, but calmly and gently. In general, as for a low-budget picture, this film was able to collect several eminent actors - Myers, Gigande, Michael Bean
.
On the technical side, the film is really low-budget. Photoshop at level 5. The photo of Reese and his wife is clutched from some different photos, and Myers’ face, if I am not mistaken, is taken from journalistic photos from a Halloween party several years ago. The promotion was good. Other attributes of the militant - blood, shots, well, frankly graphic. They reminded me of the graphics of the computer game Stalker. At the time, it was not bad for the game, but not for the 2016 film. And the special survivability of the characters who are wounded, running like mountain donkeys. Well, you have to somehow suffer, limp, lose consciousness or something.
In the middle of the film, I thought it was like Island of the Damned. Scorsese is a long way off, of course, but the movies are really similar. Questions of the human psyche and memory have a common root. Therefore, who liked “Shadow” and who loves this genre – feel free to watch “Island of the Damned” and admire DiCaprio. One of the more similar things I can remember is "Shelter", also with Myers. And in general, this picture is not bad, somewhere unfinished, but interesting. It is not for a wide audience, not everyone will understand, not everyone likes this, but has the right to live.
7 out of 10