The Ghost and The Darkness

Based on actual events, The expectation is a horrifying true story that takes itself very seriously, But, the reality is an overly weak, very thin show-off of JAWS that does not remain accurate to the true story entirely without any in-depth information and it also does not take itself too seriously, because it tries to be a comedy in some way. Let's get this out of the way: I do think that movies with a theme "man vs beast" is interesting, but as an animal lover and animal expert myself, I hate movies with that kind of theme; it's very stereotypical and it must stop! The Ghost and the Darkness is a very terrible movie. The power of it's genre is very lacking; it lacks thrills, and it lacks drama, that's because the movie's dialogue is so thin, and in some parts, really dumb. William Goldman (writer) is not suppose to make this film a preposterous comedy, why on earth did the filmmakers have to do this in the first place? Also, the direction by Stephen Hopkins does not have any powerhouse spiceness, and there are moments of slow-motion that are not a good time to be used, and does not have a sense of uneasy and unsettling tension. Even with real lions on the set, the lion attacks don't look very realistic or convincing. I didn't even care for the talent that the filmmakers have provided, they could've used these techniques in other films. The number one reason why I am not impressed with the writing and direction is because the entire narrative of the film is utterly predictable, for some reason I mostly knew what was coming almost the entire time, however I did jumped a little only one time, the rest of the film is very underwhelming and I had this straight, stone face throughout the entire film, because nothing in this film is very effective or even powerful. The characters are basically cardboard cut-outs from JAWS in terms of style and personality without any deepness and shining charm, and not to mention that most of the characters are unlikable, especially Sir Robert Beaumont played by Tom Wilkinson, he does not give any sugar about everything, and he also hates Africa himself. As I said before, the movie is based of actual events, but it's not that accurate, The real-life lions of Tsavo are males, but surprisingly, they did not have manes, The actual location of "maneater bridge" was not very rugged or mountainous at all, Remington the great white hunter is complete fiction, and the man-eating lions are not responsible for 135 fatalities, the actual number of fatalities is 28 to 31. The movie also does not fully explore some of it's deeper questions in the way that it could, basically, there is no answer to these questions: Did the people in that actual even really acted like that?, did some of these other elements actually happened?, Do lions truly climb trees?, and, how did these two man-eating lions develop the taste for human flesh? There's not much depth here. There is a scene that involves a necklace with three lion claws, and says that it shows courage and luck, Don't Buy Wildlife Products! When the buying stops, the killing can too. The score by Jerry Goldsmith, is original and dramatic, but on top of that, the entire score is nothing remarkable or robust, the score is just very simple, very repetitive, and there times where the score has the wrong instrumentation for some elements on cue. Now, if people would tell me that true story about the man-eating lions of Tsavo, It would've been an unsurprising, unremarkable, stereotypical true story. Stephen Hopkins even said in his 1998 interview "the film was a mess... I haven't been able to watch it." I totally couldn't agree more. Recommendation: Must Skip, Don't Watch, Don't Recommend!

One of the best movies and my favorite movie ever... I have watched many (unreal) ghost movies but this one is the beast because of these ferocious lions. They were real ghosts. They have shown really very scary that during whole movie you will get goosebumps. This movie is totally based on the true story. From the inception till the end it keeps you engage and thinking. I couldn't recall how many times I must have watched this movie, but everytime I keeps me entertained.

8/10 all day, this is a suprisingly good movie. The story that this movie is based off of is actually way crazier then the movie. 2 young adult/male lions repeatidly sneak into the work camp & take a man as there meal, to the point where over a hundred of men are taken & eaten.