Beast (Film)

There were four main characters. Nate takes his daughters Mare and Norah to South Africa to stay with his ranger friend Martin.

*****SPOILERS******

The girls were great.

      Both arrived all wrapped up. Um, hello, it's Africa. Famous for being hot.

      The girls' dialogue was realistic, both the amount they said and what they said. Due to the repitition and amount of nonsense, it perfectly highlighted them being siblings.

      Norah saying her eyes were sweating, her sweat was sweating, made me giggle. Then she said not having wifi wasn't fair. Now, I can't fathom how it (not having wifi due to being in the wild) had anything to do with fairness, but her outrage was amusing. Her jabbing the lion in the arse was brilliant. She was a funny character (when she wasn't terrified).

There were four things that I particularly liked.

      It was refreshing that the film was ninety minutes long. I'm fed up of all these films being between two and three hours long.

      Nate catching the snake just as it was striking him was epic. Then he dropped it on the lion's arse. (I know he's a fake lion but his poor bum!)

      Martin saying, "Sorry, boy" before lighting the oily truck, himself and the lion on fire was touching. The lion had killed a lot of people and still the animal lover cared.

      At the end, there is an intense fight scene between the lion and Nate. It was emotional and made me tense at all the right moments. Simply thrilling.

There were four moments that, from a cinematic sense, weren't great.

      Mare drags the limping Martin through the bush and then the scene cuts to him lying down in the car. This transition was a bit jumpy. The briefest glance at them reaching the car, even just the car being in their line of sight, would have eliminated the jumpiness.

      Nate shoots the lion out of the abandoned church. One door is shut and the other is only just cracked open. At no point did we see them get closed!

      It wasn't until after Martin mentioned New York that Nate started sounding like a New Yorker. I reasoned that I just hadn't picked up on it. Then it sounded like this accent slowly grew stronger until it was fully recognisable about a third of the way through the film. It was a bit disconcerting.

      Nate prompts the lion to chase him. When they reach the open, Nate is way in front. They were close when the chase began; lions are much faster than humans. So the gap should have been closed far sooner. Where the gap closed was a better cinematic angle, sure, but they ignored reality to do it.

Nate's character seemed abnormally lucky.

      Consider the reach of a lion's paws and the sharpness of their claws. So how did Nate come off with only superficial wounds?

      How did Nate, a doctor from the city, survive in the bush when poachers, who've spent their whole life in the bush, couldn't? That seems backwards. The lion spent the film trying to kill Nate so it clearly wasn't sparing him like it did for Martin.

Aspects of behaviour from the main characters seemed utterly bonkers.

      Martin has a picture of Mare and Norah's pregnant mother on the wall. Even if you were close friends with them, do you have a picture of a pregnant woman on your wall when you're not in it? Martin mentioned his last girlfriend moving out, implying her has had at least one other girlfriend living with him there. How did they feel about their boyfriend having a picture of a pregnant woman on the wall? 

      Martin walked into water even though he just saw two crocs swimming in it. That would be stupid for a civilian, but a ranger? He should know better. Then Martin, bleeding heavily, sat right next to this water. Crocs take a lot of prey from the water's edge and they're attracted to blood. Again, as a ranger he should have known better. Yes he was heavily wounded but he wasn't dying. Yes there was a monstrous lion but that doesn't cancel out the croc threat. Moving from the water wouldn't have changed the lion danger levels but would have changed the croc danger levels. 

      Nate and his daughters flee to an abandoned church. None of them close the doors even though the lion is hunting them. Then Nate starts to open up all the doors! People can be daft when they're panicking but these actions seemed beyond this defence.

The ending of this film was superb, both uplifting and joyful.

      Even after everything the family went through, they still took a photo of themselves by their mother's favourote tree. This was touching, especially because going back into the bush could have been a trigger for trauma. Birds flew out the tree just as the photo timer went off, ruining the picture in the most perfect way.

      At the start of the credits, there was a photo of a giraffe sticking its tongue out. After such a serious film, such a jovial moment could have felt out of place. Yet it was perfect. It showed nature could be as beautiful as it was savage. 

The four main actors did such an incredible job. The concept of the film was interesting and different from what's currently on the market. Plenry of positives were present, even if some other things were distracting in a negative. All-in-all, I'm glad I watched it.