The Phantom (2009)

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

I saw this on SyFy today and though to myself, "I LIKE IT!!". Set in a more modern day time than Billy Zane's Phantom (1996), this miniseries looks at the newest Kit Walker and how he came to be the new Phantom. I found the movie on a whole entertaining, and did I mention I love parkour! The characters, while not completely developed, were likable enough for me want to continue watching. Yes, its not the typical Phantom movies and comics, but times do change. We are in a new century, new technologies, and hence a new Phantom. I like how it was all incorporated. I have a penchant for liking the old storyline comics with a modern time twist.

I don't really remember the Phantom comic strips so I'm mainly going on the movie itself and the sloppiness and lack of attention to detail.Starting from the beginning... OK so the 5 year old Kit Walker was in the car with his mother when it plunged into the water, he somehow got out of the sinking car and scrambled onto a tire strapped on the wall so he didn't drown but dodged the assassins from the Singh brotherhood... but how come he isn't wet I mean obviously he didn't fly out of the car into the tire. OK I guess that can be considered a minor mistake...The boy was found near by scavanging the trash, unable to remember anything. Obviously the Bpaa Thap(or whatever the name of the phantom's organization) knew his face, and with all their intel and high tech crap should've known that his mother was killed, and that police records probably showed no body of a kid. They should've been looking for him and anything about a kid about 5 years old, who had a concussion, looked exactly like Kit Walker, found alone in a location not too far from the crash site on the front paper should've caught their eye in the first place. I mean if they were checking every DNA record logged in all intelligence agencies to find a match for Kit Walker 19 years after his disappearance, and the Walker family was so important that they kept the organization running for 19 years prepping for the 22nd Kit Walker, they probably were looking for him a couple months after the accident. How would such a significant boy just slip through? Fine, let's just say they were THAT incompetent. How about when Kit returns home to find his foster parents dead. When he enters the home he keeps calling for his parents and for some reason, the guys who are there specifically to kill him don't hear him. He calls them out pretty loud and there's just a normal door, not some high tech sound proof door between him and the killers but they don't even hear him yelling for his parents. Now we go to the Bpaa Thap headquarters. The first Kit Walker was apparently from Swiss. and in the early 1500s he was on a boat when it was attacked by pirates and landed stranded on an Indonesian island. Well first of all to land up on an Indonesian island he had to be attacked in either the Pacific Ocean or the Indian Ocean. That was before anyone in Europe even really knew about the Pacific. Vasco da Gama was the first to sail around Africa to get to India and that was around 1500. With the technology back then, it was a huge task just to get to India by boat. Even in 1536 there were no stable merchant routes between India and Europe by sea, which means there were no pirates in the Indian Ocean because there'd be nobody to plunder. Another thing, it would take months and probably over a year to sail from Indonesia back to Europe even with the best crew and navigational equipment of that age. The operation would have to consist of dozens of men and a pretty large boat. Of course he would not be able to get that on the island so how the hell did he get back to Swiss and fight crime? FYI, the in original Phantom, the Bangella island is located somewhere in Africa which makes much more sense.Oh another thing, if he was from Swiss he shouldn't use English to write his diaries. Most likely he would've used German, which is confirmed by the way they pronounced Kit Walker when they picked the 22nd up and took him to the car crash site. Again in the original Phantom, Kit Walker is of British descent. Ummmmm and yeah at the last scene. So he's all trained up for months to fight mercenaries and ex-military guys working for a worldwide crime syndicate and the gets tossed around by some tribal men like a toy. Seems like he's not ready lol And he picks up a a red hot metal ring and puts it right on. That thing should melt his fricken flesh...I'm just mentioning the big gaping holes leaving out the more subtle stuff...over all I'm giving it a 2 because of the acting which was decent. The rest was just so bad I couldn't get into the movie. Sure, I'm one who likes mystery thrillers pieced together flawlessly but the thing to note is that even huge blockbuster movies with almost no plot make sure they don't leave any obvious holes. It is always better to have no plot or details to put holes in than make a lousy one with tons of holes.

I never knew the old Phantom before, so I watched this with an open mind, I usually know nothing of the movies I'm about to watch not even genre. I kinda guessed that this was a comic-book adaptation and i was right.Okay, so this is a B-flick. the characters are neither very deep nor engaging, the actresses are, while nice, not really very stunning. Everything breathes second rate.But what is really disturbing is this trend that remakes of old 70s themed movies, comic books, TV shows turn out to be slightly racist, in it's casting and in the story lines.The evil villain here is Singh. Singh is probably the most common of names in India, like Smith or Lopez or Popov. And in the cast, to replace Guran, an African with an Asian woman??? I like pretty girls as much as anyone, but this is part of a worrying trend that started with Battle Star Galactica, when they replaced colonel Thigh with a white guy.I guess we have to be thankful that B.A. Barracus isn't some Bubba from Alabama in the new A-Team movie.The Melancholic Alcoholic.

The telling of this tale is lacking an important ingredient...The Phantom! What were these idiots thinking? Maybe they were thinking; we're bored and thought; "Hey, we've got nothing better to do, what do you say we totally destroy the story of the Phantom, a legendary, heroic icon that has been around for over 50 years. If you can make it past the first hour without falling asleep, waiting for the Phantom to appear, don't bother. You will have lost an hour of your life that you'll never get back again. The "Ghost who walks," never makes an appearance, at least not the Phantom I grew up with! This poorly executed attempt to resurrect one of the greatest crime fighters of all time fails miserably. Don't waste your time looking for the Phantom, he just isn't here!