Honestly, this movie (or 2 episode television series, if that makes sense) is a drastic new take on the 1996 movie.
It trades nearly all of the mythos and magical intrigue from the first movie for science and political intrigue, but it actually accomplishes the transition fairly well.
The story follows Chris, a 24 year old student at Columbia's law school, who has a thing for parkour. After his friend gets injured in a parkour accident, he meets an EMT named Renny, and they seem to hit it off. Naturally, his parents are immediately murdered by a pair of twin assassins. He is whisked off to an island and told that he is actually Kit Walker, the Phantom.
Overall, the protagonists are enjoyable, and definitely more lifelike than in the original films. Chris and Renny, along with her father, the assassins, and many of the characters on the island, were deep and interesting, yet each managed to provide the movie with a comic element. In fact, Jordy is one of the best "comic-relief friend" characters that I've seen in a long time.
However, this is where my review turns a little more negative. The antagonists throughout the movie were a constant source of disappointment. While the two assassins were in general very good, it was clear from the beginning that Abel was going to be an antagonist. Furthermore, while I enjoyed that the Singh Brotherhood was changed from a group of pirates to a technology corporation, the Brotherhood was fairly uninteresting, and Raatib Singh had some of the most cliché and terrible lines in all of film.
Overall, this was a fresh, new adaptation of a fairly decent nineties movie, and if you can stand fairly bland antagonists, I would recommend it.
It trades nearly all of the mythos and magical intrigue from the first movie for science and political intrigue, but it actually accomplishes the transition fairly well.
The story follows Chris, a 24 year old student at Columbia's law school, who has a thing for parkour. After his friend gets injured in a parkour accident, he meets an EMT named Renny, and they seem to hit it off. Naturally, his parents are immediately murdered by a pair of twin assassins. He is whisked off to an island and told that he is actually Kit Walker, the Phantom.
Overall, the protagonists are enjoyable, and definitely more lifelike than in the original films. Chris and Renny, along with her father, the assassins, and many of the characters on the island, were deep and interesting, yet each managed to provide the movie with a comic element. In fact, Jordy is one of the best "comic-relief friend" characters that I've seen in a long time.
However, this is where my review turns a little more negative. The antagonists throughout the movie were a constant source of disappointment. While the two assassins were in general very good, it was clear from the beginning that Abel was going to be an antagonist. Furthermore, while I enjoyed that the Singh Brotherhood was changed from a group of pirates to a technology corporation, the Brotherhood was fairly uninteresting, and Raatib Singh had some of the most cliché and terrible lines in all of film.
Overall, this was a fresh, new adaptation of a fairly decent nineties movie, and if you can stand fairly bland antagonists, I would recommend it.