Every few years, Hollywood remembers that animals can make for compelling villains in horror thrillers. The industry usually rotates through sharks, alligators/crocodiles, and lions, and since Crawl (2019) did gators, lions were up next. In comes Beast, Hollywood’s latest natural horror flick, one that features two legitimate movie stars in Idris Elba and Sharlto Copley. You’d think with those men leading the film, and experienced director Baltasar Kormákur helming it, that it might be an elevated take on a normally underwhelming genre. Unfortunately, while it is well-made, Beast is nothing more than a momentary diversion. That’s a huge shame, because there’s a version of this story that could’ve kicked ass.

After its pride is slaughtered by ruthless poachers, a male lion goes on a rampage against mankind, killing anyone in its way. Meanwhile, a recently widowed doctor, Nate Samuels (Idris Elba), takes his two teenage daughters, Meredith (Iyana Halley) and Norah (Leah Sava Jeffries), on a vacation to South Africa. Having separated from his wife shortly before her passing, Nate hopes to use this trip to reconcile with his daughters, especially his eldest, Meredith. After meeting up with Martin Battles (Sharlto Copley), an old family friend, the four protagonists head off into bush. Little do they know, they’re driving headlong into a bloodthirsty beast’s hunting grounds.

Somewhere, deep beneath the surface of Beast and its humdrum script, is a compelling story about the eternal struggle between animal and man. It’s even apparent to me that the screenwriter, Ryan Engle, likely wanted to explore this dichotomy to some extent. The thing is, it’s nigh impossible to explore such an intriguing theme without having it front and center in the storyline. If you bury it underneath another story, say, like a father trying to reconnect with his children, it’s not going to effectively convey on-screen. This is exactly what happened with Beast, a movie that has compelling ideas but fails to capitalize on any of them.

For a notable chunk of its brisk 93-minute running time, Beast focuses on the family drama between Nate and his daughters rather than any lion vs human combat. This wouldn’t necessarily be an issue if it was, you know, interesting in any way whatsoever. Sure, Elba is eminently watchable, mining every last ounce of believability and integrity that he can from his character. His daughters and the actresses that play them are quite good as well, demonstrating a wisdom and wit that belies their age. Sadly, these talented performers can only do so much with what they’re given, and never once did their melodramatic plotline tug at my heartstrings.

When the action picks up, Beast does become significantly more enjoyable. I was quite enthralled during a sequence in which Nate and Martin discover the scene of a massacre, realizing that some nearby creature has developed a taste for man-flesh. Speaking of Martin, Sharlto Copley is terrific in this movie, and you can’t help but to think that perhaps his character would’ve been more interesting as the lead. After all, they imply that Martin may be a hunter of man (poachers) himself, meaning that he and the titular beast have more in common than you’d probably assume. In and of itself, that’s more compelling than whatever Nate and his daughters are dealing with.

As for the lion, it’s occasionally really stellar, demonstrating enough viciousness to sell it as a threat to these crafty humans. When it’s hunting and mauling people, it’s bloody good fun. When it’s stalking around like a serial killer toying with his victims, it’s amusingly unrealistic.* And I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I actually liked the CGI in this movie. In the opposite way that Crawl was undermined by shabby CGI, Beast is propped up by a solid version of it. Now, I’m not saying that the lion always looks real, because it doesn’t. I’m simply stating that the visual effects never shattered my immersion in the story, so props to the VFX team here.

Consequently, you have a gripping lion antagonist hunting down four underdrawn protagonists. Not only that, but the protagonists are shown to be decent people who have nothing to do with poaching or anything else untoward. This means that the lion, which started its rampage to punish poachers, is now nothing more than a villainous murderer. This is a huge missed opportunity, because a story in which a vengeful lion hunts down a group of poachers has the potential to actually mean something, and to actually say something. And it’d make its audience ponder: who’s the bigger Beast, a man-hunting lion or a lion-hunting man?**

As I mentioned earlier, it seemed that the filmmakers had these questions and themes in mind when they made Beast. What they lacked, however, was the ingenuity and conviction to incorporate them in any way deeper than surface level. Because of this, we viewers are left with a bland melodrama about a not-so-crappy father who’s forced to protect his daughters from a cranky feline, with the hope that in doing so, they’ll forgive him for being not-so-crappy. It’s all so predictable and superficial, but worst of all, it’s tame. For a film called Beast, that’s probably an issue.

If I had to score it, I’d give Beast a 5/10.

Notes:

* It did annoy me that the lion, on two occasions, was shown to have little to no ability to smell its quarry at close range. Maybe someone on the film crew should’ve mentioned that lions have an excellent sense of smell? Hmm, maybe I’m just being pedantic.

** Imagine if Beast had instead been about two prominent poachers, played by Elba and Copley, who lead a team of poachers into the bush only to be picked off one by one. When it turns out that the lion that’s doing it is one whose pride was slaughtered by Elba and Copley’s crew, the lion would become the out-and-out good guy. A movie with that plot could really dive into the nature of man and beast, and it could also convey a more poignant anti-poaching message. Even the title works better with this plot concept, in my opinion.