The Shadow (1994) v. The Phantom (1996)

I want to like The Shadow. I also want to like The Phantom. But I can’t. I don’t dislike them per se, they just disappoint me. They are indifferently made, squandered potential.

The Shadow is the story of Lamont Cranston (Alex Baldwin). Cranston set himself up as a brutal warlord in Tibet after the First World War. He is abducted by a holy man who wants to train him to become a force for good. This holy man trains Cranston for seven years in the power of hypnosis. Cranston then returns to New York City, where he lives as a wealthy playboy. What no one knows, is that Cranston is secretly “the Shadow,” a crime fighting superhero of sorts who has the ability to seem to vanish.

Cranston will be challenged by Shiwan Khan, another student of the holy man, who possesses even greater powers. Khan is, of course, the last descendant of Genghis Khan and has plans for world domination. Those plans include kidnapping the father (Ian McKellen) of Cranston’s fiancée so that he will build an atomic bomb Khan will detonate in New York City for reasons not well explained.

The Phantom, by comparison, is the story of Kit Walker (Billy Zane). Walker is a superhero called “the Phantom,” who lives on Bengalla Island. “The Phantom” is a position passed down from father to son and Walker is the 21st Phantom to hold the title. They apparently fight pirates. In this case, Walker finds himself fighting a mercenary named Quill (James Remar), who is a member of something called the Sengh Brotherhood (even though he’s white), and he’s searching for the Skulls of Touganda, which give the owner of the skulls a tremendous power which looks suspiciously like a laser.

Walker returns to New York City where he meets his ex-girlfriend, who happens to be a journalist. She’s investigating evil businessman Xander Drax (Treat Williams). Drax, of course, is the one really after the Skulls. He kidnaps the ex-girlfriend and takes her to Begalla Island, where Walker chases Drax and his men through the jungle until their final confrontation. And there are pirates.

Yawn

The potential of these two films is really rather high. The 1930’s is a cool period and can make for an excellent setting. Look at films like Raiders of the Lost Ark and Hudsucker Proxy as prime examples where the period itself drives much of the film and pulls you into the film. Superhero films often rock as well. Noir films are great too. So a film noir, superhero film set in the 1930’s should have major potential. But neither film comes close to exploiting that potential.

The first problem that both films succumb to is that neither ever makes you feel like you’re in the 1930’s. Raiders, Hudsucker and L.A. Confidential all transported you to the era in which those films took place by immersing you in the eras. The clothes, the buildings, the cars and all the little props all fit the era. The eras were meticulously researched and they wanted you to know that.

The Shadow and The Phantom, on the other hand, feel like the 1930’s era is just a veneer. For starters, neither does much more than show you a couple sets. They fill the sets with the same old cars you see every time they make a film like this. And even then, they are shown in such a tight angle that you never see more than a couple vehicles. The main characters are given fancy 1930’s clothes, but there’s no variety of costumes. The result is that unlike the better films where you get a glimpse into an entire world, here it feels like you are seeing a small soundstage that includes only a few props from the era. There is no sense that any of this is real.

Moreover, the characters are era clichés. Both of these films are populated with only a handful of standard characters you see in every 1930’s - 1950’s period piece: the taxi driver, the journalist girlfriend, the chief of police, the supposed playboy who is really a superhero, and the evil business mogul. These are the characters you’ve seen time and again in every period piece set in the 1930’s – 1950’s, they are in every comic book of the era. You see nothing else. Indeed, neither The Shadow nor The Phantom ever go beyond and show you people you haven’t seen before.

The bigger problem with these films, however, is that their plots aren’t very tight. Specifically, they are packed with nonsense and filler. Consider this. How does an American make himself a warlord in Tibet after the First World War, which wasn’t even fought in Tibet. Why would a holy man pick a brutal drug addicted warlord to make into a hero? Why send him to New York City after training him? What a coincidence that Lamont just happens to be dating the daughter of an atomic scientist who also happens to be telepathic. Why does Khan want to blow up New York City anyway? None of these things hang together. They feel like ideas tossed in to make the film interesting rather than legitimate parts of the plot.

At the same time, The Phantom is full of coincidences and its premise is frankly stupid. In an age when the forces of darkness were the Nazis or the communists, when the Japanese were raping Nanking, “the Phantom” fights generic pirates near some nonexistent island. Oddly, “the Phantom” is the 21st in a long line of father-son teams, which means they’ve been doing this longer than America was even a country, yet the film and the character are both American-centric. The story moves back and forth between New York and the island for no believable reason except that the filmmakers wanted to show the Phantom in New York and wanted to finish in the jungle. Even worse, this film gives off the distinct feel that they simply took the “cool” visual elements from Raiders and just tossed them all together into a meaningless jumble.

Ultimately, I find both films to be very frustrating. Either easily could have been the next Raiders of the Lost Ark, but both cut so many corners and were made so indifferently that it just wasn’t possible. These films are all about the veneer and they completely lack substance. That is frustrating.