The Ghost and the Darkness Movie Download

4 / 10

An average adventure film, hardly as amazing as I’d heard
Here’s something a bit different (not original, but different): an adventure film, set in Africa in 1896 and concerning the building of a bridge. Oh, and a pair of lions which roam around and rip people apart. Sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it? Well, it is, but the execution could have been a bit better. The main problem is that the script is too concerned with the characters and not with the lions – it’s over halfway through the film before the confrontation between man and beast arrives. Thus there are plenty of ponderous moments which lack the necessary thrust and sparkle of other parts of the film, and these detract from the piece as a whole.

Another problem is with the casting of Val Kilmer as the hero. Now I’m pretty ambivalent when it comes to Val, but it has to be said that he gives a pretty poor performance here and lacks the necessary charisma of, say, Harrison Ford. Therefore, as a lead, he’s bland, and that’s not a good thing to have in a film. Thankfully we are compensated somewhat by the casting of Michael Douglas as a seasoned, over the top game hunter. The supporting cast is especially good, with a weaselly Tom Wilkinson (THE FULL MONTY) and plenty of other familiar faces.

The back of the box said there were some ‘gory’ moments, but as a whole it’s pretty tame, relying on suggestion rather than in your face blood and guts for effectiveness. There are some gruesome flashes of a torn corpse which work, but all of the other deaths are pretty similar: lion jumps on somebody and kills them off screen. The lions themselves are excellent, and Stan Winston is to thank for the creatures which grace our screens and look extremely life-like.

While THE GHOST AND THE DARKNESS has some superior suspenseful moments, there are too many stupid and mishandled action bits which just don’t ring true. Val Kilmer falls off a beam after being attacked by a bird, the final chase (up a tree, of all places) is pretty contrived too. The film works best when pondering the thought that the lions are not living creatures, but in fact spirits of the land, claiming vengeance for Mother Nature. These bits are unsettling and eeriest, but unfortunately everything else is generic and thinks that it’s better than it really is. Okay, but not as amazing as I’d heard.Read More