I squared up with “Beast” in full-on beast mode, meaning: pad, pen, popcorn and proportional expectations. Expectations somewhat exceeded! Turns out “Beast” is a fairly good, pretty brutal, dumb-smart survival thriller made with a clear, even reductive sense of purpose.
Idris Elba stars, which helps — though his role will frustrate some, I suspect, with its beaten-down, essentially reactive function. “Beast” needs a charismatic actor at its center, otherwise it’d be literally nothing but bites (feline) and bytes (digital). This is a project all too dependent on the quality of its computer-generated cat. (Visual quality of lion: quite good.)
Screenwriter Ryan Engle wrote the Dwayne Johnson giant gorilla bummer “Rampage,” but he atones for that here to some degree. “Beast” tells a two-species tale of grief over the death of loved ones. After the passing of his beloved but estranged wife, New York-based doctor Nate (Elba) has brought his daughters played by Iyana Halley and Leah Jeffries to South Africa for a safari, and a visit to their mother’s ancestral African village. The family is hosted by Nate’s old friend (Sharlto Copley), who takes an intensely personal interest in fighting the illegal poachers going after the lions and other animals native to the savanna.
