Superhero fantasy about an Occidental opium lord in Tibet, rehabilitated by a fortune-cookie-talking monk ("The weed of crime bears bitter fruit"), and taught, among other things, the power to "cloud men's minds" (i.e., to turn invisible save for an inerasable shadow) as well as the power to express oneself in a reverberant amplified stereophonic speaking voice. Just the thing, or things, to strike fear in the hearts of evildoers. Cut (quite soon) to Manhattan between world wars, where, when not posing as wealthy socialite Lamont Cranston, the hero will find his crimefighting resources sorely taxed by the arrival of the last descendant of Genghis Khan. The invisible-man effects are nicely done, even if done already in Predator; and the production overall is deluxe; and the comic-book dimensions (all two of them) of the lead character are not beyond the range of the smooth-faced Alec Baldwin; and John Lone attains a certain height of style as the megalomaniacal villain. And yet, outside of a Wellesian deep-focus shot or two on an improbably untravelled suspension bridge, it's all a bit flat and dull and routine (odd for an all-flash director like Russell Mulcahy), really more excavation than original creation, its main distinction being the thought of digging up this particular mass of pop-culture pulp before anyone else had the thought of it. With Penelope Ann Miller. (1994) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.