The Shadow Effect

Part of me was intrigued before watching 'The Shadow Effect'. It sounded interesting with a great concept, but it did look like a not very well made, ridiculous and by the numbers film with not particularly good actors so there was a little apprehension. Saw 'The Shadow Effect' anyway out of curiosity, being intrigued by the idea and having been a lot of low-budget films recently (most not very good to put it lightly).

''The Shadow Effect' managed to be worse than expected, even with mixed expectations. It started off pretty well, giving off the sense that maybe the film won't be bad and be better than it seemed. This didn't stay for long though and it is something of a shame. After the opening, the film went down south catastrophically very quickly and never recovered or improved. Actually got pretty much worse as it progressed.

On a visual level, 'The Shadow Effect' looked shoddy. Drab and simplistic, with haphazard editing, far from slick photography and very artificial-looking visuals on the whole.

The sound/soundtrack are intrusive and obvious with no variation and the direction has no sense of atmosphere or pacing, nothing to be thrilled by and nothing much engaging.

Script is awkward-sounding and ponderous, with lines that do make one cringe. A lot of it is gibberish and juvenile, with a stilted improvisatory feel that shouldn't have made it past draft stages.

On top of that, the story goes through the motions with no tension, suspense or thrills, a lot of intelligence-insulting ridiculousness, implausibility and pacing so dull that it makes a reasonably short length much longer. It is very derivative and parts also felt incomplete. The action sequences are more preposterous and by the numbers than they are thrilling or fun, a big problem for a film so heavy on this aspect. The terrible way they look also hinder them.

Characters are basically every stereotype in the book it seems and are one-dimensional caricatures with no likeability or development and with the inability to behave logically. The acting is very poor all round, particularly from Cam Gigandet, again showing no acting range of any kind. He and anaemic Jonathan Rhys-Meyers have zero chemistry together and their dialogues have no naturalness or believability whatsoever.

In summary, bad film in almost every way. 2/10 Bethany Cox

I'm often amused at the jaded and self absorbed state of the average IMDB user. It's so often clear that they have allowed themselves to devolve (Sadly so) into near automatons that USE to be film lovers only now to be wanna be "critics", whom like that sad profession, have lost the ability to find satisfaction outside of a very limited scope of their own "Prefect drug". Almost as though once they've seen a masterpiece they cannot appreciate any other painting that cannot smile the same smile as the Mona Lisa they beheld. Or cannot find the same rush from that perfect HIT of whatever their drug of choice may have been.

This movie is perfectly fine, it is a low, but adequate, budget thriller with sci-fi elements about an assassin in the vein of the Manchurian Candidate where mind control is in question. Meyers and Gigandet are fine, as is the rest of the cast. The story is played and told well, with adequate doses of action, tension and wonderment as our protagonist begins to break his brainwash and seeks to discover who and what he is, who has created him and why. Not to mention what to do about it once he begins to break their holds on him and his own mental bonds., Gigandet makes nice eye candy and does a good job in his role, and Meyers does well in a role of his usual flavor...that being charming and deceptive, manipulative and usually on the wrong side of the villain fence.

In the end it s satisfying ride, a good time and nice little movie. It's not a masterpiece, and only a fool would go into thinking it was or even should be, it's not Citizen Kane. It's an action thriller. Get over yourselves and try to get some of your ability to have fun with film back.

Even though I enjoyed the film I was left thinking that the director wasn't sure what to do with the action scenes. Cam who is a black belt in real life and has shown his thing on movies that he has done previously gets barley any unarmed combat time in this movie and I think it was a big misopportunity by the director. There are quite a few action scenes in the movie, cars, gun play, Tec and these are done pretty good, but you feel as if something is missing. Rhys Meyers was wasted throughout the movie. If you liked films like time bomb then you will like this film. This film was a combination of The Manchurian Candidate and Time bomb, with the latter's budget. Overall not bad but when you watch it, you will see that it was a big misoppourtunity.

The Shadow Effect suffers from a very weak script. Ideas seem plundered wholesale from other movies where they were executed much more effectively, including The 6th Day, The Manchurian Candidate, A Clockwork Orange, Edge of Tomorrow, Total Recall, The Bride and Universal Soldier. The derivative nature of key plot elements could be forgiven, if they were presented with some sort of original twist or insight which is sadly lacking here. The production was clearly limited by a modest budget, estimated at $4MM; however, some very good films have been done with comparably limited budgets, such as Lone Star and Dinner Rush. The difference is creativity. Plot elements that are not shamelessly misappropriated seem contrived. Some elements are simply missing, such as the lack of response by the FBI, DHS and BAFT, motivation, character arcs and theme.

The producers assembled a capable cast and secured a wonderfully rustic cabin in the woods as a location for several key scenes. However, one character is heavily tattooed, which makes no sense relative to a key element in the plot, and it's difficult to imagine how the owner-operators of a rural café with only one employee and not many customers can afford such a home. By contrast, a secret laboratory that would seem to require antiseptic conditions is located in a dingy industrial setting.

However, a DTV potboiler doesn't need to be cerebral, provided it delivers the genre basics: fight scenes, chases, gunplay, explosions and sex. The gunplay is a bit hit-or-miss with a few good scenes and shots, but a lot of weapons brandished without being fired and not many impacts. CGI explosions are pretty decent. A car chase and crash is done well for a film of this caliber, but a character steals what seems to be a souped-up vehicle but doesn't drive it. The fight choreography is clumsy. The sex and nudity are self-conscious, although integral to the plot.

Whereas similar efforts hobble along with very little plot and a lot of eye candy, TSE offers a lot of plot, but very little eye candy. However, the plot is largely incoherent and derivative and not sufficiently engaging to bridge the gaps between the visuals.

Lame copycat of the Total Recall, Demolition man and the Clockwork Orange which substitutes screaming and running/driving for acting and plot. Absolutely dreadful movie which goes nowhere, your time is better spend watching the movies this one ripped off, or just doing anything else but. Avoid.