Movie Details
Beast (2022)
Director: Baltasar Kormákur
Cast: Liyabuya Gongo, Martin Munro, and Daniel Hadebe
Movie Genres: Horror/Action
Release date: 19 August 2022
IMDB Rating: 5.6/10
Languages: English and Spanish
Duration: 1h 33m
Trailer
Synopsis
Idris Elba is a good actor, he’s been around interesting projects, but he’s never been able to quite hit the mark. He is often unlucky and his good films do not do well, or he is even more unlucky and acts in bad films. However, Hollywood still counts on him a lot, which applies to both blockbusters and smaller films. Now he joined forces with the very skilled Baltasar Kormákur and they set off to Africa on safari.
It’s quite difficult to rate the Beast. Elba plays Dr. Nate Samuels, who after the death of his wife tries to rekindle his relationship with his daughters by taking them to Africa where he met their mother. When going out into the wilderness, however, this trio and their experienced guide Martin Battles come across a lion that behaves a little differently than a lion would. And it doesn’t take long before the fight for life begins. Martin Battles is bleeding everywhere, Nate and his girls are trapped in a car on the edge of a cliff, and a lion begins to circle its prey.
Well, what happens next is more or less what you expect. If anywhere Beast rubs off, it’s in the plot itself and its delivery. If you’re reading this review before the premiere, or haven’t even seen the trailer, I dare say you’ll still be able to guess absolutely everything that’s going to happen in Beast. It’s as if Kormákur and his gang didn’t even try to invent something for the audience that they haven’t seen before. On the other hand, what else to invent? Idris Elba and his family must escape from the lion, or figure out how to kill it. And it’s up to the director to turn this cheesy and predictable plot into something that, in the end, won’t matter how cheesy and predictable it is. And Kormákur succeeds with, let’s say, average success.
There will be some interesting and exciting scenes here. They work well with sound and music, the African wilderness is beautiful to look at, and some scenes with a lion can scare and frighten. But after a while, it all becomes just waiting for the final battle anyway. There is not much to worry about, the cards are dealt quite clearly, and so boredom gradually begins to set in. However, Kormákur can pull a person out of it. In a way.
Rather than a good thriller, Beast is an interesting camera exercise. The camera was held by Oscar winner Philippe Rousselot, and together with the director, they had a lot of fun. Beast contains a lot of long shots, but not ones that allow you to get drunk on the epic setting and beauty of South Africa. The camera remains practically always glued to the heroes fighting for their lives. They understandably have no idea what is happening behind them. What was the meaning of the branch breaking from the direction they were not looking and their fear is quite easily transferred to the viewer? Moreover, the pace and atmosphere often change sharply in the carefully composed long shots themselves, and Kormákur and Rousselot show that they understand their profession and that they know how to captivate the viewer.
It freezes that the Beast mainly attracts with its technical solutions, because as soon as you stop noticing them, or just try to enjoy the story you will find that it is just another unimaginative contribution to the stories about the fight between man and nature. And the fact that the filmmakers made the most of one element of the film, but left the rest to pointless, doesn’t seem like the right approach to me in the end.
Watch For Free On Filmy4Wap