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

This film obviously has a limited budget, but it's biggest handicap is limited imagination and innovation.

These actors are given nothing to work with but scraps from other action films. The quiet stretches are the strongest parts of the film, and they're not strong.

The real weakness is when action scenes are shot and it's obvious only one take was in the budget.

The scene between Rhys-Meyers and Gigandet at the conference table sounds like bad adult film dialogue. I'm guessing this entire film was shot with one take per scene.

JRM looks ridiculous. The script and writing are bad.

This is an action movie with almost no action sequences, but a nicely mature Cam Gigandet is our hero and he is filmed shirtless making love, freaking out, hugging a toilet, being brainwashed. Good butt shots as well.

There is a weird, hard to follow, scifi resurrection plot.

Cam's acting is not bad. JRM acting accent hair is rather atrocious, but it looks like his scenes were shot in 1-2 days.

This was shot in Atlanta GA and has state tax credits written all over it. "We call them shadows, but yes they are ____."

Watch it for Cam's butt and chest and overall attractiveness. Howl with laughter for everything else.

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.

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.