The Ghost and the Darkness

You will jump out of your seat then wince at every kill, but you won't leave the cinema thinking you've seen a classic. Which is a crying shame. Read full review

The script by William Goldman (Misery) is based on fact, and when the movie sticks to fact (in an unprecedented bout of man-eating, the lions took just a few months to slaughter 130 bridge builders), the result is a hypnotic spectacle. The natives fear that the lions are unkillable demons. The hunters — Douglas and Kilmer spar splendidly in their roles — aim to prove them wrong. Hopkins, unfortunately, won’t leave well enough alone. Read full review

"I am epic, hear me roar" is what the lion-centered The Ghost and the Darkness would have you believe. The reality is more like an acceptably loud noise than a true roar, but so few films venture into the old-fashioned world of historical action adventures that even a loud noise is a welcome sound. [11 Oct 1996, p.F16]

"Ghost" comes on strong -- there's a crash-bang orchestral score, some romantic dialogue by William Goldman and many calendar shots of the savanna by Vilmos Zsigmond -- but it's hardly an epic. Kilmer's Irish accent is a flickering bulb, and Douglas, with his graying, stringy hair and beard, hams it up like a pirate with scurvy. That said, Goldman's screenplay is sharp and often unexpectedly funny. The lions are fabulously smart and evil, always one step ahead of the macho men's intricate plots to gun them down. And the man-against-beast fight scenes are twist-in-your-seat scary. Suffice it to say you haven't lived until you've dropped your rifle and a lion is chasing you up a tree. "Ghost" is no "Jaws," but it's got plenty of teeth. [21 Oct 1996, p.91]

But the very thing that drew the two actors to this ripping yarn — their enchantment with playing archetypes of male power — is the very thing that undoes their awfully big adventure. Read full review

For those who are interested in observing the habits of real lions and viewing genuine life-and- death struggles in Africa, I direct your attention to The Leopard Son, which is still in theatrical release. That well-constructed documentary has stronger drama, tension, and cinematography than the supposedly-real story told in The Ghost and the Darkness. True, it's missing Tom Wilkinson sneering, Michael Douglas smirking, and Val Kilmer looking bored, but no movie can boast everything. Read full review

At heart, The Ghost and the Darkness is essentially Jaws with paws -- at one point, you can see the lions' silhouettes circling under a sea of roiling dry grass. It has all the requisite elements for a sweeping, old-fashioned jungle adventure -- except the adventure. [11 Oct 1996, p.6G]

Miscast and nervously directed. [11 Oct 1996]

THIS odd, anachronistic movie is the story of a couple of white guys (Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas) messing around in 19th-century Africa, and a couple of lions who want to eat them. I kept rooting for the lions. The Ghost and The Darkness is not a bad movie, and the scenes with the lions are fearsome. But it is so old-fashioned in its view of British Colonial Africa that you keep expecting Stewart Granger to wander in out of "King Solomon's Mines" (1950). [11 Oct 1996, p.3E]

The movie has considerable intensity, particularly when it views hunting as a form of counter-guerrilla warfare, with the gunboys wandering into the thickets, daring the big cats to come bite them and get a bullet for their trouble. It's best trick, though, is a straight steal from "Jaws" in which the lion -- I couldn't tell if it was "Ghost" or "Darkness" -- slides across the savannah in the high grass, just a form in the seething stalks, its tail alone visible, like a fin in the glassy water. There's a primordiality, a natural human fear of things with teeth and fangs, really provoked by that image. Too bad the movie couldn't have checked into that vein more often. [11 Oct 1996]

For all its noble intent, Hopkins' film falls flat halfway through, mired in bad philosophizing and too-beautiful killing fields, neither bark nor bite mean much here. Read full review