These aren’t the most egregiously shoehorned-in emotions ever seen in a 93-minute survival/creature thriller Halley and Jeffries have a naturally awkward, believable rapport with their on-screen dad Elba, and they’re all easy to like. The camerawork offers stronger human storytelling than the obligatory talk about Nate letting his kids down, or about stepping up mid-crisis to protect them in a way he couldn’t shelter them from their mom’s death.
#Creature in the well movie#
Half the fun of the movie is watching Kormákur move through his limited spaces.
#Creature in the well windows#
The camera keeps catching the lion through windows or in the distance, a second or two before the characters notice. Later, we’re stuck in their car, or underneath it, as the lion circles, swipes, and gnashes its teeth. First we’re following along as the Samuels kids look through Martin’s house and see the South African wilderness for the first time. Kormákur uses long takes - some showy and possibly computer-assisted, but plenty that are more matter-of-fact - to turn the audience into tourists. (Or for that matter, of The Lost World.) At the same time, director Baltasar Kormákur, who’s focused his American career on survival stories like Everest and Adrift, obviously put some effort into staging the lion attacks, the downtime in between, and the exposition that leads there. The film doesn’t have the distinctive characters of Jaws, the stunning effects of Jurassic Park, or the sweaty-palmed, clenched-fist sequences of either movie. Repeatedly evoking Spielberg doesn’t necessarily do Beast any favors. (Call him Lion Neeson.) It’s very much in the tradition of another Spielberg summer creature movie: Like Jaws, Beast heightens basic human fears about a sharp-toothed predator into something impossible, even ridiculous, yet weirdly plausible for most people. Typically, female lions do the hunting and males protect the pride, but this fearsome beast has moved from protection to sheer revenge. As near as Martin can tell, this lion has “gone rogue” (his words) following the death of his pack. They find the village has been torn apart, and soon enough, a single vengeful lion is stalking all of them. Martin takes them out to see some lions and visit a local village. They meet up with Uncle Martin (Sharlto Copley), though his title is an honorific he’s a friend of the family who now works as an “anti-poacher” on an African preserve, protecting lions and other animals.
Nate Samuels (Idris Elba) is a doctor returning to South Africa for a vacation with his daughters Meredith (Iyana Halley) and Norah (Leah Jeffries) following the death of the girls’ mother, who was separating from Nate when she got sick.
#Creature in the well series#
The movie is assured as it stakes out its own smaller territory.īeast’s most noticeable departure from the Jurassic series is its intimacy only four members of the human cast really register as significant. But in spite of the parallels, in spite of a surprising level of craft for a late-August release in a summer where an actual Jurassic Park sequel got a prime June slot, Beast ultimately isn’t gunning for status as a Jurassic upstart or companion piece. Beast even features that classic Jurassic movie trope, a pair of siblings struggling to stay out of view as a large animal circles the vehicle where they’re trapped. Early in the man-versus-nature horror movie Beast, one of the characters wears a faux-vintage Jurassic Park T-shirt - a choice that scans as clear homage, from one Universal summer nature-from-hell creature feature to another.
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