(The Ghost and the Darkness, The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, Predator 2, Blown Away)
Producers:
Gale Anne Hurd, Paul Radin, A. Kitman Ho
Screenplay:
William Goldman
Music:
Jerry Goldsmith
Cast:
Remington: Michael Douglas
John Patterson: Val Kilmer
Beaumont: Tom Wilkinson
Samuel: John Kani
Dr. Hawthorne: Bernard Hill
Angus Starling: Brian McArdie
Abdullah: Om Puri
The Ghost And The Darkness
is a true story set in East Africa, 1896.
Val Kilmer plays John Patterson, a construction engineer given five
months to build a bridge - a task he feels will pose no problems as he always
keeps his word and his wife will be giving birth to their first child in
six months and he promised he would be back in time.
As time goes on, a lion comes out at night and kills one of the workers.
The following night, the same thing happens. Patterson thinks it can't be
killing for food as it wouldn't return within 24 hours. The next day, another
lion attack occurs, and it transpires that there are two lions on a
man-eating rampage.
They show no fear of man or fire, and are killing for sport rather than food
and seem to have a sixth sense for knowing what traps await them. On hearing
of the trouble caused as construction grinds to a halt, Beaumont arrives in
Africa ready to kick Patterson off the job now that he's three months behind
schedule, until Patterson suggests they call in Remington, a big-game hunter
and a legend.
The title, The Ghost And The Darkness, was the phrase given to the
two lions as it wasn't just the night-time when they attacked. Some thought
these two weren't lions at all, but the spirits of dead medicine men come back
to spread madness. For others they were the devil, sent to stop the white man
from owning the world.
For someone who is given top billing, Michael Douglas doesn't appear
until 45 minutes into the film, and shortly before the side-break, up until
which point the film has been very slow-moving. When he does arrive he plays
the same character he always plays, which is no bad thing as his entrance
is a breath of fresh air at that point.
Val Kilmer is introduced as an Irishman, which didn't ring true at all
and seemed more like he was trying to pull off another disguise as he did
several times in the big-screen version of The Saint, in which each new
disguise made Val Kilmer look even more like Val Kilmer.
The rest of the cast includes Tom Wilkinson as Patterson's employer,
Bernard Hill as the owner of the hospital, John Kani as
Patterson's right-hand man, and Brian McArdie as another helper.
Some of these will make it alive by the end of the film, and some will be
coming out in a wooden box.
Also, watch out for a cameo at the end for a character named Nigel Bransford.
He's none other than charming Eastenders wife-beater Trevor (Alex
Ferns). Shame we don't get to see him fed to the lions instead!
Trevor, from Eastenders, arrived,
little knowing he was going to be bait for the lions...
The quality of the picture leaves a bit to be desired, unlike the PAL laserdisc
which was superb, although both had a similar fault - the widescreen aspect
ratio is wrong. Originally shot in Panavision at a ratio of 2.35:1, this film
has been transferred to PAL laserdisc (as well as the NTSC release) at approx.
2.1:1, thus losing just over 10% of the original picture and so the
"2.35:1" ratio claim on the back cannot be trusted here.
This is a shame as the film has some impressive visuals which would fill the
2.35:1 frame as seen in the cinema, but are truncated here, hence this loses
the disc a point. What also suffers about the picture is that it has a fair
few speckles on the print at times and has an overall grainy look to it.
There's absolutely no reason for this and I don't recall it being apparent
on the laserdisc.
The sound quality is superb in all counts not only for the ambience and
Jerry Goldsmith's rousing score, but especially in the scenes involving
lions where stereo separation is used to its fullest, one of my favourites being
the hospital attack. Such work was accredited when the film received and Oscar
for Best Sound Effects Editing.
Alas, the film does not have nearly enough chapters. A mere fifteen are spread
through the film's 106 minutes, when at least twice as many would have
sufficed. The only extra is a trailer and the menus are static and silent.
There are subtitles in 9 languages:
English (and hard of hearing), Arabic, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian,
Portguese, Spanish and Swedish.
Overall, this package is a mixed bag. On the positive side, director Stephen
Hopkins has made a film which looks fantastic and sounds incredible. On
the down side, the widescreen framing has been cocked-up, there's not nearly
enough chapters and the film makes for a passable piece of entertainment but
generates little tension in a setting that is supposed to be fraught with
danger.
Also, Michael Douglas doesn't stay until the end of the film after arriving
late, which makes me wonder why top credit wasn't given to Kilmer with the
other actors listed after him, and then the customary thing nowadays which is
to list the big-name part-time star at the end of a film's credits, so this
one would have been "Val Kilmer, John Kani, Bernard Hill, Tom Wilkinson...
and Michael Douglas".
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
