So as it was a Bank Holiday Monday, what better way than to spend it by popping over to Cineworld and checking out the new movie BEAST starring Idris Elba and Sharlto Copley, a movie that I was a little intrigued about after seeing the trailer a while back.
BEAST opens up with a rather brutal scene as poachers track down a pride of lions and kill them, but they have bitten off more than they can chew (excuse the pun), as the head of the pride goes rogue and fights back, but not just against the poachers, this king of the Savanna is taking out its anger on any and all humans that it comes across!
Dr Nate Samuels (Idris Elba) and his daughters Norah (Leah Jeffries) and Meredith (Iyana Halley) arrive in the Savanna to meet up with Martin Battles (Sharlto Copley), an old friend of the family who also introduced Nate to his wife, for a guided tour of the Savanna and to show the girls the land that their mother came from.
But everything soon starts going wrong as they come across a village that has been brutally slaughtered by a lion, something that Martin explains doesn’t happen, shortly after they are back on the road trying to get some help they come across a villager that has barely survived the attack, Martin heads off to track down the beast but the animal has other ideas and continues its attacks and all humans.
Although BEAST has a somewhat of a slow start once we get to the point of the apex predator has found the family, attacked them and is trying to kill them in revenge, there is a feeling of tension and some nice edge-of-the-seat moments as the lion terrorises Nate and his daughters, the CGI does look good and the moments of the lions roar blasting through the cinema’s sound system did give me shivers, but sadly things do start to wear a little thin after a while.
There is a moment that did remind me of the kitchen scene in Jurassic Park, you know the one when the velociraptors are hunting the kids, there is a scene that had that feeling, earlier on one of the girls is wearing a Jurassic Park T-Shirt, when you think about it the two films have a very similar plot as humans come into another creature domain and dropping a few places in the food chain to become a creature lunch!
BEAST has some nicely shot landscapes that give you the feeling of the open space of the Savanna, the 2.35:1 aspect ratio certainly helps with those scenes, the use of the surround sound also adds dramatical effect to the production, and the 1h 33m runtime really helps with the movie as anything longer and the boredom may set in, but for a movie to waste a little time on during the Bank Holiday Monday it did the trick for me.
The movie is short and sweet, it’s not bad but then again it’s not the best movie or indeed the worst that is out there at the moment, it’s probably one for Idris Elba and Sharlto Copley fans, Copley was one of the reasons that I wanted to check out BEAST.
Man vs Apex Predator
Movie title: BEAST (2022)
Movie description: A father and his two teenage daughters find themselves hunted by a massive rogue lion intent on proving that the Savanna has but one apex predator.
Date published: August 29, 2022
Country: UK
Duration: 1h 33m
Director(s): Baltasar Kormákur
Actor(s): Idris Elba, Sharlto Copley, Liyabuya Gongo, Martin Munro, Daniel Hadebe
Genre: Adventure, Drama, Horror
Karen Woodham is the founder and owner of the Blazing Minds. She is also a Cinema reviewer and works with RealD 3D reviewing the latest 3D releases and IMAX, she has also had several articles published in various publications including the first edition of SFW Magazine. In 2015 she became an Award Winning Blogger and also has her website listed as one of the UK’s Top 10 Film Blogs.
