Beast

Like last weekend's Fall, Beast takes a simple, adrenaline-fueled premise, and runs with it, creating a lean and effective thriller.  It's certainly a B-Movie creature film through and through, and never once lets us forget it.  But, the acting on display is better than you might expect, and it works in a couple other ways as well.

One thing I do want to focus on are the effects.  The movie centers on a lion in South Africa that has gone rogue, and has started killing humans at random after the rest of its pride is wiped out by poachers in the opening scene.  The effects used to bring the lion to life are obviously generated by a computer, and yet, never come across as cartoonish or like a video game, as in some other films. (The recent Prey was a victim of CG animals that just didn't look believable in some scenes.) For a movie like this, that is vital.  We have to believe in the threat, and I personally bought it.  When you build your entire story around a special effect, you'd better get it right, and I applaud the effects team for creating a villain that seems to have real weight, and exist in the same space as the human cast.

Said human cast is headed by Idris Elba, who plays New York-based medical doctor, Nate Samuels.  He brings his preteen daughters Meredith (Iyana Halley) and Norah (Leah Sava Jeffries) to South Africa for a long-planned vacation in order to learn more about their late mother, as this is where Nate had initially met her.  They are joined on the trip by Nate's friend and guide, Martin (Sharlto Copley), and what begins as a picturesque tour of the local area becomes a nightmare when their vehicle is attacked by the mad lion that is no longer hunting for food, but simply to kill.  I admire the way that the screenplay by Ryan Engle mixed the B-Movie action thrills, with some successful character moments that explore the strained relationship between Nate and his daughters. (He was in the process of separating from their mother when the cancer that took her life was discovered.)

Unlike the previously mentioned Fall, the script also doesn't fish for soap opera-like surprise revelations in order to hold our attention beyond the simple yet effective premise.  It's a lean and tightly wound thriller that knows how to keep up the suspense during it's roughly 90 minute run time.  I found myself actually caring for these people, thanks in part to the strong performances that probably help lift Engle's dialogue a little.  Elba is acting his heart out here, whether he's sharing an emotional scene with his girls, or staring down a killer lion.  I also appreciated that the movie favors suspense over grisly kills and death scenes, and makes its characters fairly intelligent for a movie of this sort.  There are only a couple moments where characters do incredibly stupid things because the movie needs a body count here.

Beast is the kind of movie that delivers on what it promises, and does so in a way that seems a bit smarter than I would have expected walking in.  You don't go to a movie where Idris Elba wrestles with a killer lion for nuance and subtlety, obviously.  But, it wisely doesn't throw away all common sense, either.

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