Beast Review

Despite his experience at the top of the action food chain, Idris Elba has yet to cement himself. He still brushes with his roots on Luther and will forever be tied to some middling superhero flicks. Elba finds himself battling against the high bars of the food chain in Beast, a feature that remembers Sharlto Copley. Not enough do. Still, his best efforts (The A-Team) are long behind him. Protection of family and value is right at the core of this Baltasar Kormákur piece. His time behind the camera has been long-winded, much like the vague and empty action features he has commandeered so far. If anything, Beast is a potential B-Movie blast that would have fared better had it not been so dull. 

Sometimes there is no way around that, and as the plot thuds on it is hard to connect with much. Using grief and the protection of the family left over as a crutch for weaker narrative spells and some inconsistencies in the portrayal of family man Dr. Nate Daniels (Elba) make for half-baked viewing. Underwhelming and unconvincing back-and-forth between Meredith Daniels (Iyana Halley) and her father prove inconsequential. Not every father has the chance to reconnect with their daughter via safari park lion attack, but Beast squanders the chance to show an effective reconciliation post-grief in a life-or-death scenario. But the limited cast are the issue here, with few to bump off and the plot armour pulling through more than the smart writing. Struggle and frustration are aired about as glumly and dully as Elba can be expected of. 

Beast proves a Hollywood adage. Stars are there to be stars and the more they are, the harder their filmography will fall. Concrete Cowboy feels a long time off for Elba, who has yet to perform anything of quality since, and had quite the drought before it. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is in a close second. His works feel as though they often play second fiddle to something that has already occurred. Elba leaps into the creature feature with both feet firmly planted but gives off an underwhelming lead role. That is down more to the roles and their lack of interest than anything poorly performed by Elba, but it is a consistent rut that the man himself is struggling to push away from. Beast does no favours to Elba or Copley.  

As average as it can be, Beast is no beast at all. It is a withered and frail feature that relies on the inevitable deaths, disasters and lion-bashing bits of action that Kormákur musters. His story is streamlined and simple, doing well to fill its cluttered but interesting environments with as many bits and pieces of family drama as it can. Spreading that net wide means Kormákur and company do not notice how large the narrative holes are. Lions are nasty pieces of work, then. At least the CGI looks good. Better and safer to do that than to use real beasts. Its moments of action and violence fail to accept the laws of human nature but do end in some bloodied, gory bits and pieces. Too little, far too late, the real beast of this feature is the lack of intrigue in its ninety minutes.