Beast

  Beast is a ludicrous, but not ridiculous enough take on Man versus Nature, where the man is Idriss Elba and Nature is a lion that's presented as some sort of silent, efficient assassin just as long as it's not trying to kill Elba or his family. It's competently made, but the script (by Jaime Primak Sullivan and Ryan Engle) is... well, it's terrible.

 Elba plays Nate Samuels, a doctor who flies out to the bush in South Africa so he can reconnect with his daughters (Leah Jeffries and Iyana Halley). Things have been dicey since he separated from their late mother, you see, who died before they could reconcile. So he's got that typical hollywood sad dad thing going on where his daughters barely speak to him. But it's fine, honestly - trite, and convenient (they can bond while getting hunted by a lethal predator!) but the actors make it work.
 Also good: Congenial weirdo Sharlto Copley as Martin Battles, Nate's childhood friend; His relation with Nate and rapport with the girls is warm and genuinely charming.

 Martin is a preserve ranger, so as a treat he takes out Nate and his brood out to an area of a local preserve where tourists don't get to go. Things go south as the family is trapped in a crashed jeep by a stalking lion - one we know from the (fun, silly) prelude has sworn bloody revenge against humanity after poachers killed his pride. If the prelude had ended with the lion roaring at the sky while the camera pulls away, it wouldn't be a better movie, but... Wait, you know what? Fuck that, it'd totally be a better movie.

 OK, that's the basis for a fun, silly B-movie. Unfortunately Beast drags on for too long and commits the cardinal sin of making the lion be an almost laughable threat, incapable of eating these lousy civilians even though it has them all but served on a platter. Not because it's foiled in any particularly clever way, they just keep it away with kicks and screams. The fact that Cujo is still fresh in my mind, having rewatched it recently, does not help this movie's similar second act at all.

 There's some business with a band of Poachers that, besides giving the lion a revenge arc and a very short interaction with the protagonists, does fuck all for the story, an absolutely dire minor sideplot about a poacher killer (which seems like something that was mercifully cut shorter than it was originally intended to be), a late-film change of location, and, despite how lean the movie is (it clocks in at ninety minutes), a lot of what feels like wheel spinning. There's some scenes that might have some tension in a movie where there was any actual risk, but given how badly the lion fucked up the many, many chances it got with a clear shot at Nate and his family... yeah, not buying it.

 The effects are mixed, with some unnatural-looking action scenes along with some pretty well-made ones. Most FX shots would not look that bad on a more fantastic movie, but here the uncanniness sticks out like a sore thumb - we're too familiar with the real thing, thanks to David Attenborough and his ilk. The scenery is beautiful, and cinematographer Philippe Rousselot does it justice; Director Baltasar Kormákur keeps things moving nicely whenever there's not a lot of leonine action going on. It's the script that's the main problem here, with a rote plot and terrible confrontations between Elba and the lion - a pretty big problem when that's the main draw.