Beast

If there’s one thing that Beast does well, it keeps its audience on the edge of their seats.

Yes, it’s all illogical and silly: Lions don’t behave this way, and humans tend to be better at self-preservation than such movies would have us believe. But if everybody always acted correctly, we wouldn’t have movies like Beast, and that’d be no fun at all.

As with so much of this director’s work, I’m in the middle on Beast, though its efficient running time puts it a notch above. Like many of his previous films, this one has the advantage of modest scale and a passing interest in human resourcefulness under extreme duress. It has also the disadvantage of spectacle that is more technical than artistic.

August might be a washout so far for the industry but Beast couldn’t be arriving at a more apt time, a thrilling, if throwaway, reminder of the fun to be had while watching a B-movie bringing its A-game.

Think of it as Jaws on Safari and you'll have some idea what to expect from this generic thrill machine that requires Idris Elba to look great (he does) while doing battle with a digital lion.

Beast is an over-the-top savage and sometimes head-slappingly silly animal attack thriller. Its artfully paranoid and claustrophobic, comically cuddly and pretty much begs the audience to shout at the screen. A lot.

It has a few scattered laughs, some apparently intentional. But this is thin, unimaginative hack work, and it lacks the deranged seriousness and commitment that distinguishes a pleasurable misfire from bland dreck like this. It is, I am sorry to say, no “Gods of Egypt.”

"Beast" é o típico filme que se justifica unicamente pela experiência sensorial que proporciona, sem enrolação entrega um suspense mata a dentro da selva, e por incrível que pareça o pouco desenvolvimento dos personagens mais ajuda do que atrapalha, afinal, não estamos lá pra ver o drama humano, e sim o poderia da fera. As primeiras imagens mostrando humanos convivendo com leões, ora caçando ora tentando preservá-los, mostra a dubiedade de postura em relação à natureza, e esse arcabouço já é mais do que suficiente para seguir adiante. Óbvio que o roteiro cria uma justificativa estapafúrdia para o nosso protagonista (um ótimo Idris Elba) pôr as crianças em perigo, mas ao menos funciona. Tirando um ou outro momento piegas, a trama avança de forma a manter o suspense, especialmente pelo desconhecido e pela iminência ao perigo. A cena em que a fera os ataca no carro lembrou os melhores momentos de Jurassic Park, de tão bem feita como ficou. Quanto Elba tenta sair debaixo do carro, note que a câmera não precisa focar no leão, o não visto é, assim, potencializado pelas escolhas do diretor em criar a agonia necessária. Há, ainda, vários planos sequência interessantes, giros de 360 graus, uma trilha sufocante, e conta com uma boa participação dos coadjuvantes, embora, como disse, muito pouco trabalhados. A curta duração faz o tempo passar voando, mas o filme entrega o entretenimento esperado. Claro que a última cena força um pouco, não parece ser crível. Ainda assim, "Beast" é uma experiência que funciona, tem alguns sustos, tem uma direção acima da média e faz entreter ao longo da sua projeção.

It was good enough. It doesn’t reinvent anything, but I don’t think it needs to. It’s one of those films that takes a very simple idea — an animal turned into a machine for killing humans — and squeezes quite a lot out of it with real craft. At heart, that’s what it is: Jaws, but with a furious lion instead of a shark, and Idris Elba trying to survive in the middle of the savannah.What works best is that it gets to the point quickly. It doesn’t waste too much time on explanations or unnecessary side plots. It sets up the danger, traps the characters, and then focuses on generating tension with reasonable efficiency. Some moments are a bit absurd, yes, but that’s part of the deal, and the film more or less knows exactly what kind of B-movie it wants to be.Idris Elba helps a lot too. He has more than enough presence to carry a story like this, and that means even when the script becomes more basic or more implausible, the film doesn’t collapse. It’s not an especially complex role, but he gives it the solidity it needs.Visually, it’s handled quite well. The savannah, the attacks, the sense of isolation, and some of the suspense sequences genuinely work. The lion looks a bit rough at times, but in general the film knows how to use it to maintain the threat without exhausting it too ****’s true that the script has holes, that some decisions are questionable, and that everything is fairly predictable. And that may also be the film’s limit: it entertains, yes, but it doesn’t have much more to give. It has craft and knows how to tighten the screws in some moments, even if it never really leaves a mark.Overall, I found it to be an entertaining film, quite effective within its formula, with that classic killer-animal energy that still works when it’s handled well. It’s nothing extraordinary, but it goes down easily enough.

It was enjoyable enough. The constant use of 1 shot takes was very interesting but the script was very basic and bland.

Featuring bad cgi, bad accents, bad acting, a bad plot moved along by bad decisions and a huge swathe of horrible cliches and stereotypes, this movie is strictly for when there is literally no other choice of viewing. Elba’s character is apparently smart enough to be a doctor but makes a series of uninterrupted idiotic decisions and is saved from a situation that would never happen by a deus ex Machina that would also never happen. This movie has literally zero redeeming features, not the least of which is the cheesy final scene. Horrible all round.

Although I do like Idrissa Elba’s acting in his other movies and in parts in this one, unfortunately he just does not come across as an American with that strange muddled accent, which is at times a Denzel parody and at times a New York twang , much like you would expect to hear when someone is asking for a cup of “Kaaewfee” in Starbucks in New York. And he is the better part of this movie! The acting of the two daughters is excruciatingly annoying at times and the unnecessarily gory medical procedures were unwatchable for someone squeamish like me. The lion is a strange mangy beast who doesn’t conjure up the majesty of the king of the jungle. The programmer who created the lions graphics appears to have used a mixture of a large dog and a sick gorilla as a base for the CGI graphics.Anyway I did manage to sit through this one over 3 or 4 days (couldn’t take the whole movie in one session)…so be warned