Ah memories, memories. Do you recall when cinemas showed perfectly fine, modestly budgeted action flicks that passed the time without moving any mountains? It was off in the distant mid-2010s or so.
Baltasar Kormákur, Icelandic director of 101 Reykjavík and Jar City, looks a bit farther back than that for this perfectly tolerable Idris-v-lion romp. There is something of H Rider Haggard in the tale of a man venturing into the bush and squaring up against the most regal of beasts. Back then, of course, the hero would have been a dubious colonial with a tart line in explicit racism. In the 21st century, we get Idris Elba as a black American doctor returning, two children in tow, to the South African bush where his late wife grew up. You probably already have a take on the incoming subplots. The great disaster films of the 1960s and 1970s often had angst-ridden families working their traumas out through the medium of liner sinkage, skyscraper immolation or seismological annihilation. Sure enough, Nate Samuels finds eventual accommodation with young Meredith (Iyana Halley) and Norah (Leah Sava Jeffries), while the deranged beast chews through human innards. It ticks along nicely. It enjoys its gore without drifting into splatter territory. This is how we used to spend an afternoon in town after a run around the shops (watching decent action films I mean, not getting eaten by lions).
The film opens up at a steady pace. The family arrive at the game reserve and are quickly made aware that home comforts are not in abundance. There will be no wifi and — what else do you expect in a survival thriller? — no mobile coverage when they are out and about. Nate reunites with Martin Battles (the always welcome Sharlto Copley), biologist, wildlife manager, old chum, and, over al fresco drinks, explains that he needs to reconnect with his unhappily phoneless offspring. The next day they meet a lion family and, later, encounter a settlement that has been apparently chewed to mince by the key rogue.
Beast economically fleshes out the current dynamics of wildlife management. Poachers work underground. There are whispers (pointing to at least one recently discussed real-life case) about potentially overzealous “anti-poachers” killing off those illegal hunters. Martin stresses early on that the lions are unlikely to attack if humans keep their distance and refrain from provocation. We eventually get some backstory to explain why this particular creature has turned serial killer.
The biggest change from earlier adventure flicks is the use of computer-generated imagery. Nobody can reasonably complain about the move away from real animals for such projects and for the opening hour the creature is effectively summoned up at a distance or through sudden lunges towards car windows. One can hardly avoid comparisons with Steven Spielberg’s only partly deliberate decision to show only snippets of the shark in the opening hour and a half of Jaws. Freed from the pressures of faulty mechanisms that forced Spielberg’s hand, Kormákur and his team gives us, perhaps, too much of the lion in later stages. He ceases to seem properly animal and takes on the quality of a super-powered alien. Every added scar and burn adds to his unreality.
Fortunately, star and director have a sound grasp on action logistics. Kormákur often shoots in long, long takes that allow us a proper sense of the landscape while upping the imminent threat. Elba is always at home to manly charisma, but here also allows in strains of convincing self-doubt. Copley, too often a baddy, savours the chance to comfort and console.
They don’t make them like this any more. To be fair, they never made them quite like this. Passes the time very nicely (and occasionally horribly).
