Do you know how much I love The Shadow? In general, he’s just about the baddest ass character I can think of, not to mention the reason I spent so much time on “The Silver Shroud” missions in Fallout 4. The 1994 movie isn’t the greatest adaptation in the world, but it’s certainly not as bad as a lot of people think (my girlfriend included). Besides, I would kill to own the pinball machine which came out for the movie.
I do see the problems, however, and I agree: you’d think the screenwriter of Jurassic Park and the director of Highlander would produce something a lot better than this. Jonathon Winters does absolutely nothing for the plot, Tim Curry seems to have been told to “yuk it up,” and the romance between Cranston and Margo Lane is entirely uncooked. The lab sets are laughably unscientific, even by Hollywood standards (When was the last time you saw a Jacob’s Ladder in a modern movie?) and they even do the ol’ ticking time bomb routine. (Red wire or green wire? Just shoot me now so I won’t have to decide.)
But even if the exceptional cast is wasted (John Lone, who plays the last living decedent of Genghis Kahn, should be in a lot more movies while Penelope Ann Miller is more believable in the time period than anyone else), you get a rousing adventure with awesome music and some exceptional visuals. Besides, it’s the freakin’ Shadow. The last time I heard Hollywood talking about a Shadow movie, Sam Raimi had dropped out and the director of a Twilight sequel had stepped in… so, yeah, it doesn’t look like we’re going to get anything better in the foreseeable future. (Which reminds me: Doesn’t the recent news of a Gremlins reboot just churn your fuckin’ stomach?)
So I’ve always wanted to read The Talisman. I finally did and now I don’t know what to think of it. I suspect I just read it at the wrong time in my life. Considering everything else I’ve ever enjoyed, I should have loved this book. I didn’t. I didn’t dislike it, either, but I found it a bit hard to pick up at times, particularly after the Sunlight Gardner’s School subplot wrapped up. The older I get, the more I have trouble getting into “epic” fantasy (I hope this is just a phase I’m going through).
David Gemmell’s mostly self-contained Legend, on the other hand, is one of my favorite fantasy stories. It’s not long, it’s certainly not epic, and you don’t have to read the entire series to get a satisfying conclusion. This is what happens in Legend: good guys are in a great fortress. Bad guys want to get into said fortress and kill everybody. The bad guys have some pretty mean mofos on their team, but the good guys have this legendary warrior on theirs. The problem is the legend is aging and he’s not quite what he used to be.
I later learned Gemmell wrote Legend when he believed he was dying of cancer (it later turned out to be a misdiagnosis). When you read the story it’s not at all apparent that’s what he’s writing about, but it is kind of apparent in retrospect. It’s one of the purest stories I’ve ever read in the sense that it primarily exists to entertain, but you sense it’s about something bigger than what it purports to be even though you can’t quite put your finger on it. I love that kind of stuff. I typically find it much more satisfying than a story with obvious metaphors and morals.
In other news, I’m stoked to learn Joe Bob Briggs, one of the most authentic and intelligent people I can think of, is FINALLY returning to host silly movies for a 24-hour movie marathon on Shudder. They haven’t released an official date, but Briggs said, “It’ll start on a Friday in June, although we don’t know which Friday yet.”
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