Wizard-8 I remember not being very impressed by the 1996 Phantom movie with Billy Zane, so when I stumbled across this made-for-TV effort to revive the character, I was open to watching it in the hope it would be a lot better.It doesn't take long in watching this two-part movie to determine that it was intended to be the pilot of a proposed TV series. The proposed series never happened, and after watching this sorry mess, I think that was a good thing. So many things go wrong in this retelling of the Phantom legend. The production values are erratic - some scenes look expensive and slick, while other scenes look downright cheap. The "updated" costume of the hero looks frankly ridiculous, and will have you wonder why the filmmakers bothered to get the rights to The Phantom if they didn't have a costume that looked like the classic Phantom getup. The telling of the story is really muddled - some plot points (like why the hero was never told by his adoptive parents that he was adopted) are never explained in enough detail. And at three hours in length, the movie is WAY too long.There's one good bit in the movie - the prolonged assassination attempt near the end - but that's too little, too late. Other than that sequence, this modernized update is a complete misfire. The only good it manages to do is to make people realize that the 1996 movie wasn't as bad as they remember.

Claudio Carvalho In New York, the twenty-four year-old Chris Moore (Ryan Carnes) is on the last semester in the Columbia Law School and is a practitioner of Parkour. When his friend has an accident practicing the sport with him, the paramedic Renny Davidson (Cameron Goodman) helps them and Chris and Renny immediately fall in love with each other. However Chris is arrested by the police but Renny's father, Detective Sgt. Sean Davidson (Ron Lea), releases him. When Chris arrives home, his parents make him promise that he will study a lot to not fail in the upcoming exams.A couple of days later, Chris dates Renny and while he is returning home alone, he is abducted by a group in a van. Soon the leader of the group, Abel Vandermaark (Jean Marchand), explains to him that he is a foster son and his real name is Kit Walker. He is the twentieth-second generation of The Phantom, the ghost who walks, and they belong to his organization Bpaa Thap that helps The Phantom to fight the crime along the centuries. Chris does not believe on his words but when he returns home, he finds his beloved parents murdered and the two criminals waiting for him. Chris flees and one killer dies in an accident. He calls Vandermaark and they travel with Guran (Sandrine Holt) to Bangalla, where he is trained to be The Phantom. Meanwhile the evil Singh Brotherhood led by the cruel Raatib Singh (Cas Anvar) is plotting a scheme using the technology developed by Dr. Bella Lithia (Isabella Rossellini) to kill the charismatic leader Jalil Ben-David (Jason Caselli) and begin a worldwide war."The Phantom" is an adaptation of my favorite childhood hero, The Phantom, in the Twentieth-First Century. I saw this movie yesterday on DVD in an edited version of 150 minutes running time and despite of the flaws, I liked the story and found it very entertaining. The Phantom follows the family tradition, and the uniform has been used since 1536. Therefore, there is no reasonable explanation for the twentieth-second The Phantom to wear different clothing. The uniform could have been improved, but is colors and shape should have been kept the same.Abel Vandermaark is a contradictory character and the conclusion of the story is not good. Nevertheless my wife and I have enjoyed a lot this free-adaptation of this forgotten hero. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "O 22o Herdeiro" ("The 22nd Heir")

cudaseeker-1 I didn't know when I rented this DVD that it was an unrated made for cable TV movie. So when I popped the disc into the player and there were previews for SYFY shows, and then I saw "Play part 1" and "Play part 2", I thought, Oh boy this is going to be a wasted 3 hours. I was pleasantly surprised. This TV movie was actually done very well. The acting was good, the effects were good and the story was pretty easy to follow, but also had some nice twists to it that kept it interesting all the way through. I never got into the Phantom comics, so I don't know how true it stayed to the history of them, and so I didn't care about that aspect of it. It was just an enjoyable few hours spent with the family, watching a pretty darn good TV movie. There were a few scenes of graphic violence that would rate this a PG-13, so if you have little ones, it may be too violent for them. I hope it gets turned into a SYFY series. I will watch it if it does.

Grassy1 If this were a movie it would have been the best I had seen in a long long time. At last there are shows again without the huge explosions every five minutes and mostly CGI.The cast were brilliant and worked flawlessly together. Just need to have Ryan not look like he is smiling most of the time. The relationships were very believable, making you want to be there with them.Very impressive sets, not to over the top and I liked the way Phantom was brought into this century.This is a definite for all to enjoy, especially Phantom fans who should embrace the changes made to improve and modernise.