Beast (2022) Movie Review – When good lions go bad

Beast is a fun if not painfully annoying thriller that will keep you entertained throughout for both good and bad reasons.

After poachers kill a lions entire family the lion goes on a vicious killing spree after any human in its path. Sadly this lion is in the same area Dr. Nate Samuels (Elba), a medical doctor, has brought his daughters, Meredith (Iyana Halley) and Norah (Leah Jeffries) to for a vacation to hopefully mend their relationship. After meeting back with an old friend Martin, the 4 of them go on a trip to see locations and areas where their mother grew up. Quick enough though they come across the path of the lion and are faced with a life and death situation.

Though its downfall comes from heart felt moments and a back story that never fully hits to some of the worst dialog and character choices in recent films not all is lost here. Our lion looks fantastic in all his CGI glory. Though our characters have almost no common sense in the slightest. People don’t follow orders or directions, they run out and make dumb choices, and very seldom do anything smart. We do thankfully get some vicious CGI lion kills though.

Thankfully though the tension works great in the movie leading up to the short but fun final battle. Beast never tries to be anything but a tense thriller. Though the characters are dumb, the action and kills are frequent and that keeps you on the edge of your seat watching. This isn’t the typical role of Idris Elba but one that he thankfully delivered on.

Score :

3 / 5