A rogue lion that kills any human he comes across turns a family’s vacation into a fight for survival in the action thriller, Beast.
The movie begins with newly widowed Dr. Nate Daniels (Idris Elba, Luther) and his two daughters – Meredith (Iyana Halley, This is Us) and Norah (Leah Jeffries, Empire) – arriving in South Africa on vacation. Hoping to reconnect with his daughters and bond, Nate is determined to show them where he met their mother. He’s even planning on having his best friend Martin Battles (Sharlto Copley, District 9), a game reserve manager, take them on a special tour.
At first, the tour of the reserve is beautiful and impressive, with Nate and his daughters witnessing a pride of lions and the place where Meredith and Norah’s mother took a stunning self-portrait. But when Martin takes Nate and the girls to a small village to show them around, they stumble across a terrifying and gruesome scene.
They discover the villagers have been brutally killed by a rogue lion. “I’ve never seen anything like this. Multiple attacks without eating its prey. Lions don’t do that…at least no lion I’ve ever seen,” says Martin to a shocked Nate.
Realizing they’re in danger, Martin orders Nate to return to the girls in his Jeep and get ready to go back to town. What was to be a fun and memorable vacation turns into a deadly fight for survival as the rogue lion begins hunting them.
Reminiscent of the 1970s films Grizzly and Day of the Animals, Beast is a B-grade “animals attack” movie with solid performances by Idris Elba and Sharlto Copley that raise the film above other movies of its ilk. It’s a suspenseful, edge-of-your-seat thriller with plenty of jump scares.
Idris Elba is pitch-perfect as Nate, a loving father who becomes desperate to get his daughters away from the killer lion and quickly realizes just how dire their situation is. Sharlto Copley steals every scene he’s in as Martin Battles, Nate’s best friend and manager of the reserve. Martin’s accustomed to protecting the wild animals from poachers and is genuinely shocked to come across a deadly rogue lion hunting humans. The scene where he searches for the lion and slowly realizes that he’s the one being hunted is one of the most suspenseful in the film.
The CGI effectively creates a realistic-looking lion that is sure to have the audience screaming and jumping in their seats as it roars, charges, and attacks. The audience at this film critics’ screening did precisely that.
Tense and entertaining, Universal Pictures’ Beast is a crowd-pleasing adventure thriller with everything a decent B-grade movie should have.
GRADE: B-
MPAA Rating: R for bloody images, violent content, and some language
Running Time: 1 hour 33 minutes
Release Date: August 19, 2022
Directed By: Baltasar Kormákur (Everest, Contraband)
