This should be a short one. Beast is a thriller from director, Baltasar Kormákur, written by Ryan Engle, and based on a story by a Jaime Primak Sullivan. It’s as straightforward as you can get. Following the death of his ex-wife, Dr. Nate Samuels (Idris Elba) tries to mend his relationship with his daughters, Meredith (Iyana Halley) and Norah (Leah Sava Jeffries), by taking them to South Africa, to the village where he first met their mother. They stay with a family friend and biologist, Martin (Sharlto Copley), but the vacation ends up becoming a nightmare when they find themselves encountering a massive and bloodthirsty lion.
In the film’s intro, we see a group of poachers eliminating an entire pride of lions, but missing one. They quickly become the prey as the lion goes full berserker, and now seemingly out to eliminate any human that it comes across. Nate is forced to take control and be the reliable father he never was in order to protect his kids. So, pretty basic stuff as far as these kinds of man vs. nature/animal attack movies go. But on that level, the film absolutely delivers exactly what it promises without wasting too much time on anything superfluous.
However, as straightforward as the film is, there’s a lot of strong qualities to it that took me by surprise. Most of Kormákur’s body of work – in terms of his Hollywood films at least, can’t speak on his Icelandic work – has been consistently “pretty good,” nothing that will stick with you or blow your mind, but they get the job done. And he does the same here too, but there are some stuff that worth noting. I like how so many of the scenes in the film are executed as a single take, be it a simple introduction where the characters are exploring a new location, or having the camera following one character to another in one, sometimes weaving in and out of the car that the characters are trapped in for an extended period of time. It adds a certain classical elegance to the production, elevating the otherwise stock b-movie thrills.
There’s also the VFX work, which honestly features some of the best realistic animals I’ve ever seen. From the looks of it, all the animals featured here were CG, aside from a couple obvious stock footage bits, but the details, the lighting, the animation, it’s all immaculate. And the way the animals effect the environment, like how the lion would bump against the car as Nate hides under it, it all helps sell the effect really well. Considering this had a fairly modest budget of around $36 million, what the team behind this film were able to do is nothing short of astounding, and I hope they get recognized come awards season.
The performances are serviceable. It’s not the kind of film that demands too much out of its performers. The dynamic between the cast is fairly believable. Elba really sells the early lack of connection with his daughters, and the regret that builds in his subconscious. It’s a fairly basic arc, but it gives the movie an emotional hook to anchor things. Though these dream sequences the film would occasionally throw in didn’t seem to add as much as the film would imply. There’s nothing new, but it’s functional.
And that’s Beast, it’s exactly the kind of movie you might think it is/want it to be, but there are some genuinely good things about the filmmaking here from the stellar VFX to the impressive oners that are scattered throughout the film. It’s a genuinely thrilling film that doesn’t go for the kind of cheap tricks you would usually see in a movie like this. There’s actual thought and care put into the craft, and that passion shines through. Sure, it’s not gonna be anyone favorite movie of 2022, it’s not a particularly ambitious film, but it’s the kind of film you can put on when you need to kill some time, and it gets the job done in that regard. These movies have their place, and it’s nice to see one where they took the time to try to make all the elements that most productions would skimp out on better than one would initially expect. It’s not something you need to rush out, and see, but if you’re ever in the mood to see Idris Elba smack a lion in the face, this delivers.
Beast is now out in theaters.