Review of ‘The Beast’: The Nightmare of Idris Elba

Never hide the script The beast that behind a tense and stressed story of hunters and prey (interchangeable roles, more so in this type of cinema that learned everything from The evil Zaroff… and of Predator) what there is is an unsubtle metaphor about the figure of the protective father, a species as endangered as that of the lion, which is also, in its own way, a wounded being that ends up reflected (literally in the pupils of the two opposing animals) in its occasional nemesis. This reading could have worked very well and that The beast it would have been the Force Majeure (Ruben Óstlund, 2014) in Rioleón Safari of a failed father and a family in crisis, and of the impossible redemption of that paterfamilias. It’s a pity that everything is too elementary in this aspect and that it does not focus more on something that points (which of the two, long-suffering parent and lion, is the beast?) to make the film (super entertaining and always to the point) something comfortable for viewers, including animalists and nature conservators.

Who also never hides when it comes to narrating this forbidden story for nervous people indebted to metal souls Y Jurassic Park (Michael Crichton, always a forerunner in fiction) is its director, Baltasar Kormákur. Leaving aside the metaphorical substratum of the libretto, he understands that he is in the field of a zoo slasher like the one that the also European Dick Maas made, also with a lion, in the much higher Prey (2016). So the best of The beast it is the whole game between the character of Idris Elba and that mistreated king of the (South African) jungle who seeks revenge on human beings. Using typical elements of the horror genre (the use of panning and depth of field that John Carpenter patented in The halloween night)Kormákur unites both antagonists more and more until they merge (with blood and violence, but also intimate understanding) into one.

Welcome terrifying holiday and summer excursion (not intended to be Shark because it already is Nope! by Jordan Peele whatue opens on Friday, August 19), The beast is, in addition to the long-awaited series B now series A of the 80s, the perfect alibi for its viewers to review the filmography of William Girdler, a seventies craftsman who knew how to perfectly combine animal terror (Grizzly; The day of the animals) with the environmental concerns of the decade and with a pessimistic discourse on the coexistence of men with beasts.

For those who roar with zoological terror

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DATA SHEET

Address: Baltasar Kormakur Distribution: Idris Elba, Sharlto Copley, Iyana Halley, Leah Jeffries, Mel Jarnson, Anzor Alem, Billy Gallagher Country: USA Year: 2022 Release date: 12–08-2022 Gender: Terror Script: Ryan Engle. History: Jaime Primak Sullivan Duration: 93 min.

Synopsis: Dr. Nate Daniels, a recently widowed man, decides to go on a long-planned trip and return with his daughters to South Africa, the country where he met his wife, to visit a game reserve managed by Martin Battles, a wildlife biologist and old family friend. But what begins as an experience to heal wounds turns into a terrifying fight for survival when a lion begins to stalk them, who, after escaping from bloody poachers, now sees all humans as enemies.