Review Detail

A great take on this fun, underrated, gem of a movie. The new opening sets up the main character much better. Now we only find out later in the story, appropriately through a nightmare, how disturbing the Shadow's past is. The black and white works really well, though I love the richly saturated colors of the original. The "reel changes" are a clever way to set the tone of old, worn film without forcing us to watch the entire movie that way. In all a great success.
Despite the improvements, this movie remains flawed. Much better than the clunky story of Doc Savage (1975), it falls short of nostalgia for the 1930s of The Rocketeer (1991). But for fans of The Shadow, there's no alternative (until the if-wishing-made-it-so animated feature in the style of W.M. Kaluta using Orson Welles' voice from the salvaged radio plays!).
While not a perfect replacement for the original, I find myself watching this version more often than the color original.