Beast is exhilarating, brutal, stylistic, and packed with action from start to finish — a jungle thriller you just can’t miss!
Coming in at 1 hour and 33 minutes, Beast is a very fast-paced thriller. This is actually perfect for this type of film, and keeps in moving forward while avoiding any dragging down time. The opening is chilling, but then it tones down a lot.
We get a lot of great character set up early on, which allows audiences to discover the dynamics between them. This is a wonderful way to help viewers connect with them. However, once the action picks up, it never stops.
The action overall is stellar. The whole idea of the humans being in the beast’s territory is extremely fear inducing. The sound design and visuals come together to completely immerse us, as the audience, into the jungle.
The visuals are spectacular as well. A big worry going into this movie was the CG lion but it wasn’t jarring. Through long one-take sequences or short and quick kill scenes, the filmmakers executed the threat perfectly.
The cinematography of South Africa is also perfect. Once again immersing us into this world very well. Same goes for the sound design, watching it in Dolby is a must do because the surround sound makes it feel like the lion could jump out from anywhere — and yes, viewers will be on the edge of their seats as they anticipate this.
Unfortunately, the story is where this movie falls a bit flat. It is fairly lackluster and basic. But honestly, anything more complex would have required a longer runtime, which would have ruined the pacing of Beast. A movie shorter and more basic is better than an over-complicated movie that stays for too long when it comes to thrillers like this.
The emotional and action beats all hit at the right time. There are definitely a few dragged out emotional beats going into the final act, but it is nothing to complain about.
The biggest fault within the short runtime is how quickly everything was resolved. Though logistically everything made sense, the film built up to a really high moment then everything was resolved far too quickly.
A long running joke has been that the only thing protecting Elba’s character is plot armor, and of course that it slightly the case, but they execute the final battle in a way that it never feels like that. Though that did lead it to be significantly shorter than viewers will want.
At the end of the day Beast is a fun and fear-inducing action movie that is basic, but still worth the watch.
Overall: 7.5 out of 10
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About Beast
Recently widowed Dr. Nate Daniels and his two teenage daughters travel to a South African game reserve managed by Martin Battles, an old family friend and wildlife biologist. However, what begins as a journey of healing soon turns into a fearsome fight for survival when a lion, a survivor of bloodthirsty poachers, begins stalking them.
Beast is playing in theaters now.
Aryan is an aspiring content creator and journalist who loves all genres of movies. He is passionate about discussing and having conversations about anything and everything pop culture related.