An action movie with Idris Elba at the helm has the box office appeal for a lot of different types of audiences. Beast brings Elba to the big screen as a widower and father who’s taking his daughters to Africa to see the village their mother grew up in. On a quick ride out with a family friend, things quickly go wrong when a rouge lion starts to attack any human it comes near – including the family.
There are a lot of things you can say about Beast. It calls out and identifies important people and places in the movie quickly – it doesn’t leave much wiggle room in the story. There isn’t a lot left up to question – it becomes predictable, and you know what will happen to the characters as they move through the story. While usually, this would make a movie unwatchable, Beast seems to still be enjoyable, and a movie the audience can really get into.
At the heart of the movie, Beast has the story of family and the length you will go to predict the ones you love. But as Dr. Nate Daniels (Elba) works to repair the strained relationship he has with his daughters, he has to do everything it takes to keep them alive. And while Elba may be what gets viewers into the theaters, the two young actresses who play his daughters Mer (Iyana Halley) and Norah (Leah Sava Jeffries) shine in their performances.
There are times that the movie almost gives you a feeling that it’s a more extreme version of the Wild Thornberries. The animals are mostly done with CGI, or at least in the action scenes, but thankfully technology has come a long way and while viewers can tell they are real animals, it’s not distracting and it wont take away from the viewing experience.
Beast isn’t really a movie that will require a lot of thinking. It lays all of the key information out early and easily, so the audience isn’t ahead of the movie, they know exactly what is going to happen. But that doesn’t make it a bad movie. Coming in at around 90 minutes, Beast gives viewers what they want, suspense, actions, and a creature that just won’t stop. It’s thoroughly enjoyable if you’re looking for a fun popcorn movie to watch with family and friends.
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About Beast
Sometimes the rustle in the bushes actually is a monster.
Idris Elba (Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, The Suicide Squad) stars in a pulse-pounding new thriller about a father and his two teenage daughters who find themselves hunted by a massive rogue lion intent on proving that the savannah has but one apex predator.
Elba plays Dr. Nate Daniels, a recently widowed husband who returns to South Africa, where he first met his wife, on a long-planned trip with their daughters to a game reserve managed by Martin Battles (Sharlto Copley, Russian Doll series, Maleficent), an old family friend and wildlife biologist. But what begins as a journey of healing jolts into a fearsome fight for survival when a lion, a survivor of blood-thirsty poachers who now sees all humans as the enemy, begins stalking them.
Iyana Halley (The Hate U Give, This is Us series) plays Daniels’ 18-year-old daughter, Meredith, and Leah Sava Jeffries (Rel series, Empire series) plays his 13-year-old, Norah.
From visceral, experiential filmmaker Baltasar Kormákur, the director of Everest and Universal Pictures’ 2 Guns and Contraband, Beast is produced by Will Packer, the blockbuster producer of Girls Trip, the Ride Along franchise, and ten movies that have opened No. 1 at the U.S. box office, including Night School, No Good Deed and Think Like a Man, by James Lopez, president of Will Packer Productions, and by Baltasar Kormákur. The film is written by Ryan Engle (Rampage, Non-Stop) from an original story by Jaime Primak Sullivan and is executive produced by Jaime Primak Sullivan and Bernard Bellew.
