'Beast' Shows Up Shy of Canon

“We want villains to be sexy, and in my mind, an animal could be very sexy in a kind of exotic way.” That’s Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur on the computer-generated star of Beast, an intelligent lion in the South African bush with a vendetta against poachers. While I’m not sure I follow the premise of sexy mammals, Kormákur certainly makes the titular beast a uniquely majestic predatory cat. The CGI lion looks marvelous, powerful, and downright menacing.

The recently divorced and widowed—a unique combination of life events—Dr. Nate Daniels (Idris Elba) takes his two daughters to their recently departed mother’s hometown in South Africa. The exact purpose of the trip is not fully clear, but it has something to do with the anti-poaching activities of Uncle Martin (Sharlto Copley), who appears to be a very close family friend. The elder daughter, Norah (Leah Jeffries), holds a camera tight and a grudge against her father for leaving before her mother “got sick” even tighter. The younger and more innocent Meredith (Iyana Halley) has a robust vocabulary for a child her age and loves arguing with her older sister.

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