movie review of beast

‘Beast’ Review: Idris Elba Shows a Berserk African Lion Who’s Boss

It's not as ambitious as 'Nope,' but this tense survival story — set amid an out-of-control safari — is a lot more fun than brainier summer blockbusters.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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No animals were harmed in the making of “ Beast .” Frankly, it doesn’t look like any animals were even used in the making of “Beast,” but if you can get past the idea that the two-ton lion threatening Idris Elba and his family in the movie is a singularly frightening combination of ones and zeros, not killer instinct and claws, then “Beast” is a blast.

A white-knuckle “When Animals Attack!” movie in the tradition of “Jaws” and “Anaconda,” this big-budget, big-screen release features A-list actors — OK, actor , singular — and a director who knows what he’s doing: Icelandic ace Baltasar Kormákur, who cut his teeth on such nightmare-inducing man-against-nature films as “Everest” and “Adrift.” Here, the threat is a very big, very angry African cat, understandably agitated after a group of poachers slaughtered his pride, that has decided to kill every human that crosses his path. Seriously, the body count in this movie is off the charts.

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Enter Elba, who plays single dad Nate Samuels, a tough but emotionally wounded man looking to reconnect with his two daughters, Mere (Iyana Halley) and Norah (Leah Jeffries), by bringing them to the African savanna where he met their mother. He imagines the trip as a bonding experience and perhaps a way to patch things up after a tough year. Screenwriter Ryan Engle’s otherwise lean, suspense-focused script spends a lot of energy on their backstory, fleshing out problems with the parents’ marriage, Mom’s death by cancer and how the girls are coping with that tragedy. Dad’s in the doghouse, but punching a killer lion in the kisser is a decent way to show how much he loves his girls.

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Not all lions are ferocious, Kormákur wants to make clear, including a scene where their host, Martin (South African actor Sharlto Copley, star of “District 9”), shows how the cuddly carnivores behave toward humans they trust. Martin raised an entire pride of lions on his property from cubs, and when he approaches their territory, instead of ripping him limb from limb, the two adult males rush out to greet him, putting their (CG) paws on his shoulders and licking his face. It’s like the VFX equivalent of the “Christian the Lion” viral videos you’ve probably seen online, except, because the cats aren’t real, the scene doesn’t feel as remarkable.

It’s definitely for the best that Kormákur didn’t insist on using actual lions. If you don’t know the true story of the film “Roar” and its wildly irresponsible production, give it a Google: Director Noel Marshall tried training his big-cat cast from birth, keeping lions and such around the house for years. When it came time to shoot, he endangered his own family, as wife (and “The Birds” star) Tippi Hedren and daughter Melanie Griffith were both mauled in the making of the film.

Here, Martin takes Nate and his daughters out for a mini-safari, not realizing there’s a rogue lion on the loose. The first couple of attacks happen off-camera, as Kormákur shows the victim’s face just before a loud Dolby snarl makes the megaplex walls vibrate. Cut to black. He saves the big reveal for Nate and his daughters, who’ve exposed themselves by stepping out of the (limited) safety of Martin’s reinforced SUV. Their behavior may be risky as hell, but half the fun of the movie comes from wanting to shout at these characters to get back in the bloody car.

The movie would be pretty boring if they just huddled up there waiting for help to arrive. Instead, Kormákur commits to the R rating, piling one threat on top of another. Turns out, Martin’s an “anti-poacher” (he shoots the guys who shoot the animals on his preserve), which makes things pretty tense when the poachers from the opening scene show up, armed to the teeth — like the guerrillas from Elba’s other African-beast movie, “Beasts of No Nation.” In theory, this would mean that Martin and the lion are on the same side, although there’s no reasoning with a carnivore that feels so threatened, it will proactively attack with no intention of eating its prey.

Don’t be surprised to find a decent segment of the audience rooting for the lion — not against the Samuels clan, but against the movie’s other, more villainous characters. If a human being had suffered the same indignity this lion does in the opening scene, having its entire family slaughtered by men with guns, we’d be cheering for him to get his revenge. But Kormákur never really adopts the animal’s POV, so we’re not invited to empathize with it so much as recognize that this atypical aggression has been provoked by the poachers.

That’s where he’s lucky to have Elba, who plainly insisted on playing someone with a complicated psychology, even if all the script required was a man tough enough to take the climactic mauling “Beast” has in store for Nate. Like the great Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune, Elba is an incredibly physical performer who instinctively comes up with little bits of business to reveal the personality of his character. The ending is ludicrous, and yet it works because of all that Elba has invested in making this protective papa convincing. That’s the beauty of “Beast”: The lion may look fake, but the stakes feel real.

Reviewed at Burbank 16, Los Angeles, Aug. 16, 2022. MPA Rating: R. Running time: 93 MIN.

• Production: A Universal Pictures release and presentation of a Will Packer Prods., RVK Studios production. Producers: Will Packer, Baltasar Kormákur, James Lopez. Executive producers: Bernard Bellew, Jaime Primak Sullivan.
• Crew: Director: Baltasar Kormákur. Screenplay: Ryan Engle; story: Jaime Primak Sullivan. Camera: Philippe Rousselot. Editor: Jay Rabinowitz. Editor: Steven Price.
• With: Idris Elba, Sharlto Copley, Iyana Halley, Leah Jeffries.

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Beast Movie Review: Vijay Is Super-Chill In An Uncomplicated, Jolly Action Comedy Where The Stakes Don’t Matter At All

Cast:  Vijay, Pooja Hedge, Aparna das, Yogi Babu, Selvaraghavan, Redin Kingsley

Director:  Nelson

There's a fairly straightforward throughline in  Beast  that ensures this new Vijay film doesn't suffer from the same problems you've come to expect from the superstar's films. In an effort to make a Vijay film a "complete package" with a little bit of everything, especially since Atlee took over, you sense the makers throwing a lot at you assuming some of it sticks. But with Beast's allegiance to almost every single trope you expect in a typical hostage drama, you get a focussed film without the flab and the excesses that make parts of Vijay's films tiring.

Let's take the manner in which the film segues into 'Arabic Kuthu', the monster hit that assumes double duties of both an intro song and Vijay's main dance number. It's around 15 minutes into the film after what's inventively a rather melancholic beginning. Ex-RAW Agent Veeraraghavan (Vijay) has to attend a wedding with his shrink (we'll get back to this point later) when a sudden meet-cute with Preethi (Pooja Hedge) is treated with a kind of humour where its genericness becomes a flavour. The scene itself isn't really special but at least it's Preethi who is making the first move to propose to Veeraghavan and not because she's smitten by him. She just needs an excuse to call off her engagement and time's running out.

By using the idea of her impending engagement as a recurring joke, Nelson manages to remove the need for a love angle that feels long and forced, while also placing on 'Arabic Kuthu' the additional duties of a love duet. Veeraraghavan and Preethi get together soon enough and the film doesn't even try to make the song feel like an organic extension of a scene. In what turns into a dream sequence, the setting, the clothes and the mood changes briskly and we're primed for a film so devoted to the idea of being "jolly" that it's almost offensive to take it seriously.

Shedding this seriousness is vital to  Beast because it begins with what could have been the tragic second-half flashback. It's an inventive idea to finish Veeraraghavan's back story so early on because it removes the need for a genre shift later on, making the film's dark comedic tone consistent thereafter. And for what it's worth, it's still a big deal to begin a Vijay film with his character's admission to having mental health issues after a particularly traumatic event. Like in Master , his change in behaviour is a result of overwhelming guilt from having caused harm to an innocent, but over here, the theme of redemption isn't as central as the character's deep trust issues towards the government (both officials and politicians) in general. But the mental health angle is hardly explored beyond this point, even though there's a terrific idea there about how children crying triggers extreme emotions in Veeraraghavan.

This again is something you have to get used to because Nelson doesn't ever want his film to be more than 30 seconds away from the next big joke or sarky wisecrack. It is the same principle he repurposes from his earlier films and it is the reason why so many people love his work. Which means that even when 200 people are being held captive inside a mall or when an 80-year-old lady's brains get blasted out of her skull, we're still waiting for Yogi Babu or Redin Kingsley or VTV Ganesh or Pooja Hegde or Selvaraghavan to say something funny about anyone worth making fun of.

But it's also overwhelmingly true that Nelson doesn't appear as fresh a director as he did during last year's Doctor . To me, the director's most marked ability is the way he creates dozens of goofballs as characters and then inserts them seamlessly into the screenplay. Maybe he had the time then to both write these roles and then also find the quirkiest people on earth to play them. But with Beast , you feel the strains of a man trying to repeat himself because he's running out of ideas.

Which is perhaps why actors like Yogi Babu and Redin aren't able to recreate the riot that they were in  Doctor . Even Sathish, who gets a lot of hilarious writing, isn't quite able to 'catch the meter' of an odd Nelson character. The result is a set of sequences that work only when the jokes land. For me, the most consistent supporting character throughout the film was VTV Ganesh who fits perfectly into Nelson's universe. Ganesh's hilariously ageist gag keeps delivering the goods through dry spells and it's one of the few consistent tracks that maintain the film's tone (unlike the clingy fiancé jokes).

Yet the film never becomes flippant although it always borders on it. More than an Indian James Bond as the film describes itself to be, I found the inherent theme of the film closer in spirit to James Cameron's True Lies . This is in part because it leaves you with audacious visuals like Vijay driving a car through a mall and that of F-16 zooming past you, but it's also got to do with how there's an exaggerated, caricature-like atmosphere where the audaciousness is fully owned. And even when you feel stuck craving for a little drama, there's always one clever plot twist or a crazy action scene that reminds you for the 100th time that this isn't a film to be taken seriously.

So when you feel like the portrayal of the terrorists, the corrupt politician or even the good Muslim (Selvaraghavan plays Althaf Hussain) could be problematic, it demands that you step back and notice how the film has made fun of everyone. Add to this the feather-like lightness of the plot (revealed almost entirely in the trailer), resting on a super relaxed Vijay and Anirudh whose Red Bull-infused themes blow up the screen when the energy drops, and we get a Beast of an entertainer in what appears to be the body of a beauty (Manoj Paramahamsa is the DOP). It is focused, unfussy and unsentimental without the weight of a million farmers to save or the womenkind to empower. It's a film that's set in a world best described as 'Jolly O Gymkhana'.

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‘beast’ review: idris elba tangles with the king of the jungle in tense but silly survival thriller.

Sharlto Copley also stars in Baltasar Kormákur's nightmare safari in which a desperate father is driven to protect his daughters from a vengeful lion.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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Beast wants to have it both ways. Ryan Engle’s script, from a story by Jaime Primak Sullivan, loads up on gore and distressingly close calls amped up with effective jump scares. But it’s not content to give us dumb hair-raising fun; it also aims to move us with the tender feelings and frictions of a family ruptured by tragedy. What’s more, it asks us to accept a citified guy who appears never before to have handled a rifle instantly becoming Indiana Jones.

It’s a testament to the charisma and natural gravitas of Elba that we even halfway buy Dr. Nate Samuels as he dodges the massive rogue male lion, at one point simultaneously stopping a deadly boomslang snake mid-strike. When he’s wading around in crocodile-infested waters, I kept expecting him to punch one of those leathery mothers in the mouth, Lara Croft-style.

A tense prologue shows poachers under the cloak of night wrapping up a successful hunt, during which they have killed a pride of lions, whose teeth, claws and bones fetch big money on the black market. Only the patriarch of the pride eludes them, its paw prints indicating its mighty size. A handful of men stay behind to kill the creature before it comes after them. But its stealth in the tall grass proves too much for them.

Kormákur follows the old rule of holding off on showing the monster, seen only in the briefest flash as it leaps out of the darkness onto an unfortunate poacher.

Recently widowed Dr. Nate arrives with his 18-year-old daughter Mere (Iyana Halley) and her 13-year-old sister Norah (Leah Jeffries) at a remote location deep in the South African bushland, met there by family friend Martin ( Sharlto Copley ), a wildlife expert who manages the nature reserve.

Nate first met his wife there through Martin, and the trip to some degree has been planned to bridge the distance that’s opened up between him and Mere since her mother’s death. The couple had mutually agreed to separate, and Mere blames her dad for not being there as her mother’s health declined. In routine fashion, Nate also beats himself up for not being a sharp enough doctor to spot the cancer and stop it in its tracks.

But when Martin spots what appears to be a bullet wound in the paw of one of the females, he insists they stop by a local village to investigate. The fresh carnage they find there is alarming evidence of a lion behaving abnormally, entering a populated settlement and indiscriminately killing without eating its prey. A mountain in their path blocks the jeep’s radio signal, leaving the group with minimal protection when the grieving lion charges at them.

Unlike, say, Disney’s unnecessary live-action remake of The Lion King , which just seemed like another form of animation, minus the heart, the CG lion here is a fearsome, photo-realistic creature. The relentlessness with which it pounds the jeep, crashing through windows and swiping at the trembling family inside, makes for some pulse-pounding sequences.

Halley and Jeffries are terrific as young women suddenly given something more legitimate to complain about than the lack of WiFi or cell reception. And the script gives them just enough courage and resourcefulness to have a hand in the family’s survival, without veering into ridiculousness. That’s not always the case with Nate, who is forced to take charge when Martin is immobilized by a severe mauling. Suspension of disbelief is required more than once, notably when the lion is only inches away from Nate but appears to have no sense of smell. Maybe its nose got damaged while pulverizing the jeep’s windscreen?

As man vs. beast stories go, this one is neither the best nor the worst. Steven Price’s score keeps the tension high, and Elba and Copley are good enough actors to deliver even the most pedestrian dialogue with conviction. It also helps that the movie runs a tight 90 minutes. Beast is no Jaws , but it’s no Jaws: The Revenge , either.

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Beast Reviews

In light and dark, dry and wet, peaceful and pouncing, the critters— entirely CG from my understanding—might be the most realistically rendered animals since 2019’s Lion King.

Full Review | Jul 16, 2024

Beast is an effective B-movie thriller that overcomes its mediocre writing with well-shot sequences and a solid lead performance by Idris Elba.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Jul 12, 2024

The cast is better than the film deserves and has terrific chemistry – deft at making themselves than likable enough to hope they survive, stupid enough to punch a CGI lion (yeah, not smart).

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 9, 2024

The narrative structure of this type of stories is always the same, only the animal in question changes. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Apr 9, 2024

Not every movie is going to change your life. Some of them just have movie stars fighting a creature they could not possibly fight in real life. But, in many of these cases, the movie is just fun.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Feb 28, 2024

Though peopled with characters behaving irrationally, this Baltasar Kormákur directorial is enjoyable in an economic, bare-bones way.

Full Review | Oct 4, 2023

Beast is filled with appreciation for South Africa and plenty of fun action scenes, but its script stops it from reaching its true potential.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 18, 2023

Easiest way to put it… this is surprisingly good. For a 90 minute thriller you’ll find some wicked intense shots that give you a ton of anxiety! Idris Elba sells this entire concept in an exciting way & there’s even a bit of emotion to it all!

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

There's some fun to be had with the action sequences when the mayhem starts but there's quite a lot that is just plain silly.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 29, 2023

So, accepting the absence of thematic content and realistic portrayals of the natural world such films inevitably must be somewhat about themselves and how they were made. And Beast is made with a degree of elegance that’s wholly unexpected...

Full Review | Feb 7, 2023

Beast is one of those action films that you have to suspend believe & hold on for the ride with you friend or family member. Elba plays a father of two caught in the worst case scenario where a Lion is hunting them. Its as cringy as it is entertaining

Full Review | Original Score: D | Dec 26, 2022

...fares best in its compelling and periodically enthralling first half...

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 16, 2022

…Beast is passable Saturday night fare, but despite a lot of hard work on the technical side, this lion doesn’t make much of a roar…

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 28, 2022

For much of its slim running time, Beast does what it’s supposed to do, right down to the buzzy moments of silliness where it bravely, too briefly heads over the top.

Full Review | Oct 29, 2022

It’s not the most robust cinematic meal, but as a style exercise, it earns a modest place among the rest of the pride.

Full Review | Oct 25, 2022

Everything in this action thriller seems real. So, of course, that makes the thrills extra chillier.

Full Review | Oct 20, 2022

The escalation of terror is genuinely exciting until the movie bogs down in CGI absurdity instead of reasonably credible survival.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Oct 18, 2022

Beast is not a great movie. Some may even say it’s terrible. Where the movie flounders is when director Baltasar Kormákur attempts to make it too much about a man reckoning the death of his wife via some very overwrought dream sequences.

Full Review | Oct 17, 2022

Even at just 93 minutes, “Beast” often feels padded and stretched. Icelandic director Baltasar Kormakur and journeyman screenwriter Ryan Engle paint themselves into a narrative corner with no chance of logical or believable escape.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Oct 4, 2022

It’s a hot mess and kind of basic. But it’s tons of fun, baby.

Full Review | Oct 3, 2022

‘Beast’: Idris Elba Battles the ‘Cujo’ of Lions

• By David Fear

“It’s the law of the jungle,” one character says fairly early on in Beast — “early” as in after we’ve established that a lion decides to become a four-legged vigilante once some poachers slaughter his pride, but before this one-cat army sets his sights on our hero and his family. The way the man inhales and pauses before he delivers the next line suggests he’s about to drop some serious science: “The only law that matters here.” Ah. Ok!

And there is, of course, the Law of Man vs. Nature — can’t forget that ol’ narrative chestnut. It clearly states that, with human beings having transgressed against all creatures great or small for profit or out of malice or simply because Homo sapiens are straight-up a trash species, those creatures have been given license to bite back. Sometimes, a predator is just exercising his or her God-given right to be a predator. ( Jaws gonna Jaws !). And sometimes…well, sometimes, it’s personal.

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You could do worse than handing this assignment to a director like Baltasar Kormákur, who seems to thrive when given stories involving survival ( The Deep, Adrift, Everest ) and men having their mettle tested overall ( Contraband, 2 Guns ). He’s also good at distracting you with technical bells and whistles, as when the party stumbles across an abandoned village that turns out to be a crime scene. His camera doesn’t just record the aftermath of a slaughter; it slithers, creeps, glides, and stalks its way around the carnage in a way that feels downright predatory. Still, transcendental it ain’t. Workmanlike is more like it. If he happens to stumble across a shot that feels poetically pulpy — say, a profile of Elba in full action-hero mode, backlit by a dusky horizon as his leonine executor crouches for an attack — that’s merely a bonus.

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Review: Idris Elba, meet lion. The new thriller ‘Beast’ doesn’t beat around the bush

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Lions and poachers and snares, oh my! In the satisfyingly grisly survival thriller “Beast,” Idris Elba plays a grieving widower who drags his two teenage daughters to a South African game reserve, embarking on an emotional journey that devolves into a nightmarish tussle with Mother Nature. Jean-Luc Godard famously said that all you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun; this one has two girls and several rifles, though one of them only fires none-too-effective tranquilizer darts. The movie’s real weapon is a very large, very angry, skillfully computer-generated king of the jungle that turns out to have a major bone to pick (or crush) with the human race.

The animus is more than justified, given the ruinous state of the world in general and the ruthless poachers who’ve hunted these lions in particular. A few of those poachers come to a deservedly nasty end in the prologue, a tense nighttime set piece that establishes the human-versus-nature stakes and, no less important, a consistent, coherent visual scheme. Most of the mayhem in “Beast” is staged in lengthy, serpentine tracking shots that keep pace with the characters as they try to detect, evade and flee from a predator that might always be just a few lunges away. As his camera prowls the rugged terrain in precisely choreographed movements, director Baltasar Kormákur (working with cinematographer Philippe Rousselot) achieves a physical groundedness that makes even a digitally engineered predator seem palpably real.

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That groundedness also anchors the predictably hokey if refreshingly straightforward narrative preliminaries laid out in Ryan Engle’s screenplay (based on a story by Jaime Primak Sullivan). Nate Samuels (Elba) is a doctor, which you can bet is going to come in handy. He and his daughters — moody, photography-loving Mare (Iyana Halley) and spunky Norah (Leah Jeffries) — are visiting South Africa, the homeland of their recently deceased wife and mother. (The movie was shot on location in the country’s Northern Cape province.) They’re on a healing journey, or at least that’s the idea; family friction keeps intruding, much of it rooted in Nate’s specific failures as a husband and father.

Helping to relieve the mood is Nate’s longtime friend Martin (the invaluable Sharlto Copley, from “District 9” ). A combination game warden and wildlife whisperer, Martin is on hand to play safari guide and murmur ominous warnings about “the law of the jungle,” even as he demonstrates firsthand how harmless and cuddly the local lion prides are. You can’t blame them for the graphically mauled human corpses that suddenly turn up in a nearby village. That would be the handiwork of a much bigger, meaner lion that soon roars into the frame, trapping the group deep in the South African bush with only a stalled jeep for shelter. There’s a peculiarly monstrous, almost mutant quality to this dark-maned beast, who looks a bit like Aslan of the Dead , or perhaps Scar from “The Lion King” after a cocktail of steroids and bath salts.

That sounds ridiculous, but it turns out to be just the right amount of ridiculous for this shrewd, stripped-down late-summer diversion. Kormákur has been working his way toward this B-movie sweet spot for a while. Over a career that’s zigzagged between his native Iceland and Hollywood, he’s become a reliable disaster artist, capsizing a boat in “The Deep,” stranding two lovers at sea in “Adrift” and following mountain climbers on a snowy death march in “Everest.” The human body in extremis is his comfort zone, and here, with pouncing paws, snapping jaws and discreetly blood-gushing wounds, he sustains — and, crucially, modulates — the threat of grievous bodily harm.

It helps that the central foursome, especially Halley and Jeffries, are as likable as they are, which helps mitigate and even sell the absurdity of those moments that will have you screaming “Stay in the car, you idiot!” and “Roll up the [your choice of expletive] window!” Elba, a reliably suave man of action, shrewdly downplays here as a bumbling dad who, brawny frame and medical expertise aside, is no physical match for Pridezilla. That remains true even as things hurtle toward an inevitable mano-a-mane climax, a ludicrous if enjoyable reminder that just because you’ve seen one killer CGI lion, it doesn’t mean you’ve seen them maul.

Rating: R, for violent content, bloody images and some language Running time: 1 hour, 33 minutes Playing: Starts Aug. 19 in general release

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Justin Chang was a film critic for the Los Angeles Times from 2016 to 2024. He won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in criticism for work published in 2023. Chang is the author of the book “FilmCraft: Editing” and serves as chair of the National Society of Film Critics and secretary of the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn.

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Johnny Oleksinski

‘beast’ review: idris elba’s creature movie makes you miss ‘anaconda’.

In the new movie “Beast,” a demonic lion gets a layered backstory like he’s Liam Neeson in “Taken.”

Why is Scary Simba killing African villagers for sport, and determinedly hunting Nate ( Idris Elba ) and his two young daughters (Leah Sava Jeffries and Iyana Halley)? Evil poachers offed the big cat’s pride, he snapped and went rogue.

Running time: 93 minutes. Rated <br>Rated R (violent content, bloody images and some language.) In theaters.

I don’t recall ever feeling bad for the deadly creatures in “Jaws” or “Anaconda” or “Lake Placid.” But my heart went out to this poor, murderous, widower lion hellbent on avenging the death of cute cubs and lionesses.

Yet, this is a film along the lines of the above trio (in an early scene one of Nate’s daughters even wears a “Jurassic Park” T-shirt) where we need to want man (the good ones, anyway) to win. We never poured one out for the shark. No tears were shed for raptors! These stories are campy, not emotionally complex, and this one makes you feel crummy in the end. 

Nate brings his daughters to the faraway savanna after his ex-wife dies. The couple spent happy years there — he as a doctor and his wife as a wildlife photographer — and he thinks it would be good for the kids to connect with the place. What a great idea that turned out to be.

On the first day there, they go on safari with Nate’s old friend Martin (Sharlto Copley) and the group stumbles upon a savaged, corpse-strewn village and finds themselves face to face with Kitty Cat Cujo.

Their car, naturally, crashes into a tree and the rest of the film is them venturing outside of it (idiotically), returning in terror and trying and failing to avoid the creature.

There are some decent scares of the jump variety, and Elba gives a subtle performance given the circumstances. To give his character more oomph, the writers put him at an emotional distance from his daughters because they believe he abandoned their sick mom. A great way for a dad to reclaim his children’s love is by protecting them from a ferocious lion.

But it all comes down to Mr. Whiskers. The lion’s CGI animation is merely adequate, so even though he spooks you he never comes across as quite real. After some early thrills, director Baltasar Kormákur’s movie ceases to excite because the creature has no more surprises left. He just jumps through the window — again.

And the final epic fight is laughable. In real-life, Nate would be mauled to death in five seconds.

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‘Beast’ movie review: Idris Elba faces a rogue African lion in safari thriller

• August 9, 2022
• ★★★ , Movie Reviews

A widowed father comes to terms with the death of his wife while trying to protect his two young daughters from a bloodthirsty lion in Beast , an especially lean and efficient thriller opening in Prague cinemas this weekend ahead of an August 19 release in the states.

Bolstered by an emphatic lead performance by Idris Elba , focused direction by Baltasar Kormákur , and a great feel for the setting on the plains of the African savanna, Beast is an especially solid natural horror flick and one of the best to focus on the kings of the jungle alongside 1996’s The Ghost and the Darkness .

While the thrills are plenty, however, a disarmingly straightforward script results in few surprises, and Beast also has the unfortunate distinction of opening on the heels of the similarly-themed and superior Prey .

Elba stars as Nate Samuels, a New York doctor who flies with his teenage daughters Meredith ( Iyana Halley ) and Norah ( Leah Jeffries ) to the rural African hometown of their mother in the wake of her death. Nate and his wife had been separated at the time of her passing, and the trip is intended as a form of catharsis for the family.

In the savanna, they have the perfect guide for a safari: Martin Battles ( Sharlto Copely ), a childhood friend of Nate’s wife and current park ranger who protects the area’s pride of lions from the threat of poachers.

But the family trip quickly turns into a nightmare when they discover a small village has been mauled to death, and on their way out they meet the culprit: a pissed-off male lion whose pride has been wiped out by poachers, and is now seeking revenge.

That’s bad news for Nate and his daughters, who find themselves trapped in a disabled jeep with limited supplies and no way of reaching the outside world as the lion prowls the nearby plains around them.

The lions seen throughout Beast are created using some surprisingly convincing computer effects, which are well-integrated into the action. A climactic fight between Elba and the lion rivals Leonardo DiCaprio ’s mauling at the hands of a bear in The Revenant for gruesome animal action, though this one turns out a little different.

Beast is a straightforward, no-nonsense thriller on the level of something like Alexandre Aja ’s gator-based Crawl , and it delivers as well as expected on those terms. Copley’s character adds a bit of grit and realism, and even some educational background, but Beast is far less ambitious than something like The Ghost and the Darkness .

One also wishes that the screenplay, by Ryan Engle ( Rampage ) from a Jaime Primak Sullivan story, might have also offered up a surprise or two. Beast is so lean that we know where it’s going by the end of the first act, with throwaway lines popping up as a plot devices by the climax.

But while Beast might have been conceived as a modest B-movie, committed work by those involved in the production elevates it to something a little more. Elba gives a surprisingly invested performance as the grieving father – he’s not slumming it here – and Copely is (as always) a standout in support.

Icelandic director Kormákur ( Everest , 2 Guns ) tackles Beast with the same steady hand he’s brought to films of larger scope, and the result is a pulse-pounding little thriller that keeps us on the lookout for its man-eating predator for much of the running time.

• 2022 , Baltasar Kormákur , Beast , Billy Gallagher , Damon Burtley , Dorian Hedgewood , Hudson Anne-Black , Idris Elba , Iyana Halley , Jaime Primak Sullivan , Kate Grisley , Leah Jeffries , Mel Jarnson , Robby MacIsaac , Ryan Engle , Sharlto Copley , Travis Lemrick

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Jason Pirodsky

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Underrated movie. This was 2023’s Crawl, with some genuinely suspenseful Lion scenes, if some silliness with the girls. But otherwise top animal horror, B+

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Beast (2022): Movie Review & Ending Explained

Beast (2022) review:.

The premise of Beast (2022) is simple and contrived: Idris Elba engages in fisticuffs with a murderous lion. Thankfully, that’s all the movie ever sets out to be. In a subgenre that’s been pitting man against nature for a lot longer than it has needed to, it’ll surely fade into the background by the time the year’s up. Nevertheless, it’s quite a relief to see a film that doesn’t unnecessarily add more than what its advertisements promise. That it has the confidence of a far better movie is reason alone to forgive its lack of purpose and the predictability it wears on its sleeve.

Here’s a film that at least has the competence to keep its premise grounded in realism, and one that views its sacrifice of character development as a necessary risk if it means giving an audience what they want to see. We know very little about Dr. Nate Samuels (Elba) and his two daughters, Meredith (Iyana Halley) and Norah (Leah Sava Jeffries), other than that they’ve recently suffered the loss of their mother and are traveling to South Africa to visit the village where she grew up. However, who wouldn’t be able to relate to the sense of helplessness and panic if a safari went extremely awry? With a hungry lion on one side and a team of equally thirsty poachers on the other, there’s little that occurs in Beast that viewers won’t see coming, and with only 93 minutes to spare, it spends next to none of them worrying about the real ecological concerns surrounding the Samuels as they fight for their lives. It’s perhaps the film’s biggest boon, then, that it makes that struggle for survival just thrilling enough.

Then again, it’s not as if Beast is meant to be a parable about interfering with nature or domestic fallout in the wake of death. Even if it were, Idris Elba would likely have given as tremendous of a performance as he does here. Alongside the equally undervalued Sharlto Copley as the Samuels’ friend and safari guide Martin, Elba effectively balances his resourcefulness and quick-witted intelligence as a wildlife biologist with the regret he feels over walking out on his wife as she succumbed to cancer. Having a family who isn’t quite ready to forgive him in tow is enough to humanize Samuels and make his eventual conflict with the lion that much more exciting. Elba isn’t bringing the same kind of superhuman presence he’s brought to his previous roles in the The Suicide Squad (2021), Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019), or the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Instead, he’s playing one of the most tangible characters he’s played on the big screen in years, often the most doubtful of his own abilities but determined to hold his ground nonetheless.

Of course, Elba and director Baltasar Kormákur have help from a committed production crew who are just as willing to take the premise seriously enough to ensure that the film doesn’t unintentionally devolve into lurid B-movie sensationalism akin to 1981’s Roar, an infamous production nightmare due to its use of real wild animals which injured dozens of cast and crew members. If it’s not all that it needs to do something unexpected with its premise, Beast still has the kind of intention that is rarely seen in films like it. Kormákur’s previous work on the true-to-life Everest (2015) and Adrift (2018) suit him for his position, ably conveying a sense of realness even in a setting where the setup isn’t exactly commonplace to real life. The work of cinematographer Philippe Rousselot is an additional surprise in this regard. Rather than leaving them with a bird’s eye view, the Oscar-winner finds a way to place the viewer in the middle of the nightmare with some impressively conceived long takes, adding a welcome bit of grace and nuance to the Samuels’ frightening, often claustrophobic experience.

Sadly, the presentation of the lion itself invites an equal share of commendation and derision; the visual rendering is easy to impress as its coloring blends in with the brightness of the day, but less so as its artificiality sticks out in the pitch black of night. What’s worse is that Beast ultimately lets its voracious antagonist down with an anticlimactic finish that brings a great deal of momentum to a halt. It’s more than perplexing, especially considering the film honors its promise of pitting two able-bodied foes against one another in a fight to protect their territory, only to then uncharacteristically fizzle out. But Beast is a film largely concerned with the trail of terror a lion can leave in its tracks, and, though ultimately forgettable even at its best, its a modest success with the decency to realize what it is.

Beast (2022) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:

Why is the lion attacking people.

Beast (2022) opens on the plains of South Africa, where a group of poachers are descending upon the land. Coming across a pride of lions, the poachers manage to shoot all of them except the leader. The male lion takes shelter amongst the tall grass while a handful of poachers load the others into a truck to be skinned. A few poachers stay behind to set a trap for the head lion, but fail to realize that it is close by and has trapped them instead. One of the men emerges from the grass with multiple gashes across his face and neck, and it is not long before the lion emerges and kills the rest of the poachers.

Why are the Samuels in South Africa?

Dr. Nate Samuels (Elba) arrives in South Africa from New York City not long after the opening attack with his two daughters, Meredith (Halley) and Norah (Jeffries). The girls are still mourning the loss of their mother, Amahle, to cancer, and are resentful of Nate for devoting more time to his work than to her during her last days. As Nate struggles to re-establish an emotional connection to his daughters, the Samuels are met by their friend and Nate’s former schoolmate, Martin Battles (Copley), who has agreed to chaperone their trip to the village where Amahle grew up, having grown up in the village himself and been good friends with Amahle all her life. Meredith later voices her anger to Nate over dinner, condemning him for his lack of interest in his family since Amahle’s death. Nate confides in Martin later that night, asking him why he never came to the funeral, to which Martin responds by admitting he didn’t like the idea of Amahle being buried in an average American cemetery when she deserved to be buried near the village in South Africa.

The next morning, Martin and fellow wildlife preservationist Banji lead the Samuels on a safari of the surrounding plains, where they come across a pride of lions that Martin and Banji have raised since they were cubs. The pride greets Martin joyously like pets, and it’s here that Banji explains to the Samuels the role each lion plays in a pride: the female lions do the hunting while the males are tasked with protecting the pride from any forces that invade their territory. Martin notices a bullet wound in the paw of one of the hunter lions, and when he approaches her, she acts aggressively. He is nudged away by one of the males and the group departs the scene shortly thereafter.

How Does the Lion Find the Samuels?

As Banji leaves to inform the rest of the preservationists about poachers in the area, Martin and the Samuels press on to Amahle’s village, which they discover is quiet and empty. After a brief search for the residents, Martin and Nate discover the decomposing corpses of several villagers who have all been slain by the lone, vengeful lion. Evacuating the village, their drive is interrupted by a wounded man named Mutende who appears to have been attacked, as well. Mutended dies despite Nate’s best efforts to save him while Martin goes off on his own to hunt the lion down. Martin finds the lion and takes a shot at it with his rifle. When Nate goes to look for Martin, he notices the lion heading toward him and races to the group’s car, making it back just before the lion can get to him. As the lion chases the Samuels’ car, Nate’s erratic driving and lack of knowledge of the area cause him to crash the car near the edge of a cliff, where it stalls out.

The Samuels manage to make contact with Martin, whose leg has been mauled by the lion, via walkie-talkie. Nate instructs Martin on how to stop the bleeding while formulating a plan on how to save him. Finding a tranquilizer gun in the car, Nate assembles it while Meredith gets an idea of Martin’s location before getting out of the truck to find him. When the lion re-emerges, Meredith makes her way to Martin as Norah and Nate manage to overpower the lion by shooting it with a dart. Meredith and Martin find their way back to the truck, where Nate operates on Martin and manages to slow his bleeding.

Do the Poachers Help the Samuels?

The group find themselves trapped in the car overnight as the tranquilizer’s effects wear off faster than they anticipated, allowing the lion to continue blocking their path to escape. With their water supply dwindling, Nate suffers from nightmares in which his daughters are killed by the lion. After waking up, he apologizes to Meredith for not being there when they needed him and reaffirms the love he had for their mother. Shortly thereafter, they pick up a signal through the car’s radio and provide their location.

The group is discovered by poachers who are scouting the area in search of the lion. Nate manages to negotiate with the leader for safe passage out of the area, but he soon reneges on the deal after discovering Martin is with them. The poachers leave the Samuels behind as they learn Martin is a known anti-poacher who has killed several men to protect the South African wildlife. The lion attacks again, killing all of the poachers and giving the Samuels the opportunity to make a break for the poachers’ van. Martin gets Meredith and Norah out of harm’s way as the lion attempts to attack their car, sending the car over the edge with Martin and the lion inside. As the Samuels escape in the poachers’ van, Martin sees the car’s leaking gas and ignites it, killing himself and burning the lion.

Beast (2022) Ending, Explained: How Do The Samuels Escape The Lion?

The Samuels drive toward their camp, but Nate stops the car at an abandoned building to find medical supplies for Meredith, who was injured by the lion during their escape. Nate tends to Meredith’s injuries before the burnt lion arrives at the building. Nate instructs the girls to hide as he distracts the lion and lures it out into the open. He draws the lion into the territory of Martin’s lions, fighting it one-on-one with a knife as it bites and scratches him several times. Just as the lion is about to finish Nate off, the male lions from the nearby pride attack the lone lion and fight it off themselves. The lone lion is killed by Martin’s pride as Nate passes out from his injuries.

Nate regains consciousness in a hospital sometime later, where he is greeted by Meredith and Norah, who inform him that Banji rescued them and brought them to safety. They thank him for saving their lives and commend him for knowing that Martin’s pride would attack the lion to protect their own. After Nate begins to recover, the Samuels continue on with their vacation by visiting a tree that their mother loved in her youth.

Read More: Here’s Where to Watch and Stream Idris Elba’s New Movie ‘Beast’ Online

Beast (2022) trailer.

Beast (2022) Movie Links: IMDb , Wikipedia Beast (2022) Movie Cast: Idris Elba, Kazi Khuboni, Sharlto Copley

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A father and his two teenage daughters find themselves hunted by a massive rogue lion intent on proving that the Savanna has but one apex predator. A father and his two teenage daughters find themselves hunted by a massive rogue lion intent on proving that the Savanna has but one apex predator. A father and his two teenage daughters find themselves hunted by a massive rogue lion intent on proving that the Savanna has but one apex predator.

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• Trivia On why he did the movie, Idris Elba stated: "I come from an era where these sort of films were the norm, like high-anxiety, 'Run, chase, run, chase, look out, look behind you!' This was an opportunity for me to make a film like that. I've done thrillers before, but this was the first time it involved this cat-and-mouse aspect to it. I was really intrigued by the family dynamic, the daughters, the nature of grief, this doctor who's essentially someone that's composed and tries not to panic, found himself doing just that," Elba tells Complex about the survival thriller directed by Baltasar Kormákur. "I just love the script. I love Baltasar, the director. I wanted to work with him. He's made some really incredible survivor movies, and I just wanted to get his take on what this might be like."
• Goofs When Dr. Nate Samuels (Idris Elba) is in the lake looking for keys, he's wading almost shoulder-deep in the water. In the next shot when he is out of the water, his shirt is completely dry.

Martin Battles : Come On You Bastard

[last lines]

Martin Battles : I'm Sorry Boy

• Crazy credits After credits we here the sounds of the Savannah and lions roaring when the title comes up several slash marks appear on it followed by a lion growling
• Connections Featured in Chris Stuckmann Movie Reviews: Beast (2022)
• Soundtracks Black Man's Cry Written & Performed by Fela Kuti (as Fela Anikulapo Kuti) Courtesy of Knitting Factory Records/Partisan Records

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Review: A Troubled Beauty and a Mysterious ‘Beast’

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By Jeannette Catsoulis

• May 10, 2018

“Moll’s a wild one,” someone remarks early in “Beast,” Michael Pearce’s thrilling, unsettling debut feature. With her electric twist of Titian curls and dark, secretive gaze, Moll (a riveting Jessie Buckley) has the look of a volcano that’s primed to erupt.

Stirring murder mystery, love story and psychodrama into a mesmerizing slurry, Mr. Pearce turns his native island of Jersey into a sunlit trap where Moll chafes against her domineering mother (an icy Geraldine James) and conservative community. A nasty incident with scissors haunts her past and suggests her mother might have cause to exert control; and when she meets Pascal (Johnny Flynn, perfect), an insinuatingly handsome poacher, she cleaves to him as one would a kindred spirit.

Aided and abetted by Benjamin Kracun’s alluringly sensual cinematography, Mr. Pearce has created a feverish fairy tale riven with dark horrors and forbidden desires. Young women are being raped and murdered, and as suspicion circles Pascal, Moll’s behavior is disturbingly unreadable. Does she truly believe he is innocent, or is she drawn to the possibility that he is not?

Bathed in a shadowy beauty and slippery psychological atmosphere, “Beast” soars on Ms. Buckley’s increasingly animalistic performance. At one point, Moll settles into the hole where a body has been found, filling her mouth with damp earth. Later, she lounges, filthy, on her mother’s pristine sofa, her nails streaking defiantly muddy trails on the white cloth. This is lurid stuff, yet Mr. Pearce miraculously holds things together until the end — even when his heroine fails to do the same.

Rated R for rough passion and beastly violence. Running time: 1 hour 47 minutes.

‘Nightbitch’: Amy Adams’ Transformation Into a Dog (Really!) Is a Surprising Triumph

LEADER OF THE PACK

“Nightbitch” is a movie that is as bonkers as it sounds—the mundanity of suburban life drives a mother to morph into a dog—but Adams’ sharp, silly performance pulls it off.

Nick Schager

Entertainment Critic

Courtesy of TIFF

TORONTO, Canada— Amy Adams is great and yet her career choices over the past few years—including Vice , Hillbilly Eleg y , The Woman in the Window , and Dear Evan Hansen —have been anything but. Nightbitch , thankfully, reverses that trend.

A magic-realist fable about motherhood, identity, transformation, and the brutality and bliss of creating and cultivating life, writer/director Marielle Heller’s adaptation of Rachel Yoder’s novel, which just premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival ahead of its Dec. 6 theatrical release, has an eye-catching title and a unique spirit to back it up. Resembling a bonkers marriage of Young Tully and Teen Wolf , and led by a ferociously naked and unafraid performance by its star, it’s an amusingly incisive howl of maternal pain, frustration, disappointment, resentment, and feral strength.

Adams’ unnamed Mother spends her mornings frying up breakfast for her adorable and unruly young Son (Arleigh Patrick Snowden and Emmett James Snowden), her days taking walks with him to the playground, and her nights vainly trying to get him to go to sleep beside her. Though she clearly cares for him, the monotony of her suburban existence, which she’s chosen over her past career as a celebrated New York artist, is causing her to slowly come apart at the seams.

At the library, she finds herself stuck joining a weekly “Book Babies” sing-a-long with other kids and mothers, and she can barely keep from throwing her hands up in the air and screaming at the sight of snot being wiped from noses and tears streaming down little faces, not to mention the cacophony of wails, laughter, gibberish, and awful ditties that are destined to worm their way into her brain.

Mother puts on the bravest face she can manage and makes her way through the world pretending that everything’s okay. At the same time, Nightbitch frequently has her burst into tirades about sexist social dynamics and her confusion and fears, which invariably turn out to be just the thoughts and opinions she wishes she could utter.

“I’m stuck in a prison of my own erection,” she laments in her mind to a cheery acquaintance at the grocery store. However, as someone who detests the idea of befriending women simply because they too are mothers (a notion she deems “pathetic”), the best Mother can muster when it comes to connection is a knowing smile at a fellow mom struggling to keep her daughter from grabbing every item off the store shelf.

Despite feeling that she’s “dumb” and destined to never again be smart, happy, or thin, Mother soldiers onward because she loves being a mom—even as she says that (to herself, and others) in order to conform to expectations. Adams’ protagonist is alternately, and sometimes simultaneously, compassionate and exasperated, patient and ready to explode.

Working from her own script, Heller generates humor from Mother’s exhaustion and exasperation at the wildness of her life and creation, who at the aforementioned sing-along announces to everyone that his name is “F---!” Nightbitch captures the chaos of early parenthood, and not merely in terms of the messes, mistakes, and unexpected miseries and magical moments; through interior narration, it also gives voice to women’s dissatisfactions with being reduced to stay-at-home servants and caregivers, their guilt over that discontent, and their contradictory feelings of devotion to, and irritation with, their offspring.

Reaching her boiling point, Mother discovers that she’s begun sprouting weird hairs on her tailbone and under her chin, as well as acquired a heightened sense of smell. This is laughed off by her Husband (Scoot McNairy), who’s habitually away on business trips, only to return home to feign wanting to be helpful while continuing to let his wife do the dirty work.

Shortly thereafter, Mother becomes a magnet for dogs, first at the park and then at her house, where they leave her dead-animal offerings. Encouraged by a book about mythic female shapeshifters given to her by a librarian (Jessica Harper), she develops a burning desire to act like a pooch, which initially manifests itself as a game she plays with Son to calm (i.e. train) him, and ultimately turns into a compulsion that causes her to take to the streets at night, shedding her skin to mutate into a gorgeous canine that runs through the streets, killing any prey that gets in her way.

No matter its out-there conceit, Nightbitch restrains itself from going totally over-the-top. Its fantasticality is always an outgrowth of its main character’s desire for freedom, agency, and strength, and its blend of the surreal and the real is often quite comical, as when a newly empowered Mother has her own one-woman sing-a-long in the car to Weird Al’s “Dare to be Stupid.”

The more she gets in touch with her primal instincts, the more Mother actively pushes back on Husband’s inconsiderate advice and uselessness around the house, instigating severe change. Nonetheless, far from a screed about the awfulness of domesticity and the awesomeness of independence, the film perceptively recognizes that Mother’s evolution need not result in a binary choice; on the contrary, the clarity, confidence, and might which she attains from tapping into her animalism binds her to Son and her role as his nurturer and protector.

Whereas flashbacks to Mother’s adolescent relationship with her mom obliquely suggest the witchy origins of her condition, Adams’ narration sometimes spells things out a tad too literally. Fortunately, her fiercely funny portrayal of the harried and hungry Mother is exceptionally nuanced, conveying with tired eyes, annoyed grimaces, and resigned smirks the various modes in which she, and all mothers, are compelled to operate.

From sprouting new sets of nipples and eating food out of bowls, to chasing squirrels and growling at pretentious art-scene friends with whom she now has nothing in common, Mother is a woman learning to tap into her inner beastliness. Heller imagines that process as an awakening of a true, ancient self, and the actress charts it with a weariness, distress, and fury that never overwhelms her hope for her, and her clan’s, future.

Nightbitch concludes with metamorphosis, death, birth, and rebirth, all of it begat by Mother’s craving for wholeness. Sublimely sharp, silly and moving, Heller’s latest is a charmingly off-kilter portrait of the way in which everyone benefits from women having it all—as well as a better breed of project for its illustrious leading lady.

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Cannes Rejected Bertrand Bonello’s ‘The Beast’ — It’s Now Venice’s Boldest Movie

Ryan lattanzio, deputy editor, film.

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Editor’s Note: This interview originally ran during the 2023 Venice Film Festival. “ The Beast ” opens in U.S. theaters on April 5, 2024.

Fans of David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks: The Return” and its mystical loop through hell and horror that ends with a scream, charged by Tulpas and body-swapping and timelines that swallow each other up, might find their itch for the heartsick uncanny scratched by Bertrand Bonello ’s “The Beast.”

But her constant — her “Beast” — is a pursuit adjacent to love, in the form of a man played by George MacKay. He first courts her in 1910, a section Bonello adapts faithfully from Henry James’ 1903 novella “The Beast in the Jungle,” about a man who rejects love because he thinks something horrible will happen to prevent it (it never does). Then, in 2014, MacKay plays a Santa Barbara college student named Louis Lewanski who, if you followed the news that year, you’ll recognize immediately from his Armani sunglasses, camera positioning, Range Rover, and self-tape monologues promising to slaughter all women who rejected him, as incel killer Elliot Rodger.

The throughline of each period of the movie argues how we are perhaps doomed to love the same person in every iteration of our lives. As IndieWire’s David Ehrlich put it so well , French director Bonello’s films are typically “more interested in negotiating the semiotics of emotion than provoking it,” but “The Beast” turns out to be a rather touching love story as Gabrielle keeps coming up against various versions of MacKay’s character throughout her lifetime(s). She remains fixed as he changes, which doesn’t bode well for her lifelong search for a meaningful loving connection.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

IndieWire: There’s a been rumor that Cannes rejected “The Beast” for its 2023 festival. Is this true?

Bertrand Bonello: It is. The best place for a film is where the film is wanted, and now we are doing, with this film, a huge fall release, so Venice, then Toronto, New York, Busan, stuff like that, so maybe it’s what’s best for the film. [Cannes] didn’t like it.

Did the screenplay start in 1910 with the Henry James story? How did it take shape? I can’t imagine that the screenplay was written out in the order it unfolds onscreen.

Usually, I have a piece of paper, and I put notes on it with all my desires, some ideas. Not always stories, little words, stuff like that, and it has to fit on one paper. When I think I have a film on that, I start to write. On this piece of paper, there were very different things, [including] melodrama, which drove me to Henry James, because this novel is the most beautiful, heartbreaking, and awful novel about love. I remember some of the words [on the paper], mixing words, mixing genres, having a female as a main character, which is something I’ve never done. So when I had all this stuff, then I started to write. It’s a mix of many desires.

No. It’s crazy. When Gaspard died, we decided to still do the film. The first decision was not to replace him with a French actor; I didn’t want any comparison because it would have been impossible for me and the actor. I wanted to switch to an American or British actor, so I started to do this classical [casting process], meeting a lot of people for three or four months. The last person I met was George. I went to London. We met and did a few tests, and after two or three minutes, it was obvious he was a good person [to play the role]. It is true he didn’t speak a word of French, but I’ve been always told British actors were amazing and the hardest actors. It’s true because it’s not phonetic; he’s really acting. We gave him coaches, but he’s really acting, not repeating.

In the 2014 period of the film, I knew immediately that MacKay was playing an Elliot Rodger type because of the word-for-word recreation of his manifestos, even the clothes and the way you position George with the camera. Some people in the audience were laughing .

I was watching the film at 4:30 at the official premiere, and it was incredibly quiet, like a church, and I’m always very happy about that. But during the monologues, some people were laughing.

I realize, yes, the first monologue where he’s like, “Look, I’ve got my Giorgio Armani,” it can be funny, but the more you go into the monologues, and his hate of women and the day of retribution, people stop laughing.

Is there a comparison for this kind of person in France? What’s France’s relationship to this Elliot Rodger figure?

It’s very different. That’s why I set up this second part in L.A., in America. Of course, we have incels, of course, we have people killing girls, but not the same way of putting yourself in mise en scene. This is very North American for me. America, because of the relationship with guns, the way everything is fiction in a way, even reality is fiction, creates this kind of character. That’s why I set up in L.A.

Did you have any hesitation about bringing the image of Rodger back onscreen?

I discovered in 2014 his videos, and I was really impressed, shocked by the acts of course, but impressed by the monologues. I couldn’t write that. If I had written something like that, my writing would have been more crazy, and there is something very normal in his way of talking that is even more freaky. I kept quite close to his words because I couldn’t find a better or more freaky way to express these ideas.

We shot in L.A. only a couple of nights. We shot with a very small crew, no authorization. Of course, when you’re a moviemaker, you arrive in L.A., you think, “I’m going to shoot in L.A.!” It’s something that makes you dream. But Hollywood Boulevard, for example, because there is so much light was easy. It’s always something to be in L.A.

How did you end up casting “Red Scare Podcast” host Dasha Nekrasova? She’s great at playing this disaffected kind of L.A. person.

Every time I do an interview with someone American, they go to Dasha. I have to tell you the truth. I was in New York in 2019 to present a film [“Zombi Child”], and she asked to meet me, so we had coffee and a drink, and we got on well, exchanged a few emails, then she came to Paris. When I was searching for an American girl for two or three scenes, I didn’t want to go through casting, and Dasha was perfect because I really like the rhythm of her voice. I wasn’t aware of her podcast. Then I told my daughter, she said, “Dasha is going to be in your film? Have you heard about the podcast?” I said, no, what is it, and she told me.

Exactly. It’s not something I ask. I respect the way the actors are. The way they work is very different. With George, for example, two months before the shooting, we talked a lot, a lot of emails, questions from him. He really wanted to prepare himself a lot. That’s his way of working. We did all the preparation and work before the shoot, so when he gets on the shoot, there’s not a lot to direct with him. It’s done. Léa, on the contrary — she doesn’t want to know a lot. She doesn’t ask any questions. She likes the fact that she does not always understand the heart of the scene. She’s comfortable with that, and she prefers the present time of the shooting. She has a great cinematographic intelligence, but that doesn’t go through her brain. They’re very different. It was not always easy to have two actors on set that work in a different way, but that’s my job, to adapt to the actors.

They got along together really well, and very quickly. While I was preparing shots, I was just watching them laugh all the time. I don’t even know if they were talking about the scenes or just getting on well together. I don’t think Léa needed to understand what was going on.

I know. A friend, a DP who shot a film shot 14 weeks on a blue screen. For me, the prologue was a way to say, OK, there is going to be something virtual in the film, not virtual in the sense of images, but virtual in a wider sense. It’s also a way to say, OK, my subject is Gabrielle, because she’s so alone on the green screen, and also say, my second subject is Léa Seydoux, because the film becomes a documentary on her. She’s shot on every side. In many scenes, especially in 2014 and 2044, she’s alone in front of screens, in this house in L.A., and in 2044, even when she talks with her friend or people, it’s just voices. For many days, I just had a camera and Léa and a location.

How did you devise the technology that erases human emotions in 2044? It’s never explained how it works exactly.

In science fiction, there is a concept. The concept I chose, because it helps me with my melodrama, is that today, people have been doing shit, now AI took over, and today there are no more problems, but emotions are a problem. You see how emotions almost destroy the world. The dilemma [Gabrielle] has is either you get an interesting job with no more emotions or you stay as useless people, and you can live your emotions but just out of the world.

I’ve never done science fiction before. It’s not something I know very well. Usually, there are two directions used in science fiction — hyper-technology in one sense and post-apocalyptic in another. I wanted to find a third direction. I chose 2044 because it’s future, right? But it’s tomorrow, it’s very close. We know that a lot of things will be the same, like architecture. The difference is with behavior, and I decided to take away stuff. You don’t have internet, images, commercials, you don’t have screens, you don’t have cars, you don’t have real sound. You don’t have interactions with other people. To get the world like it is, but empty. It gives the character [of Gabrielle] a huge loneliness. It’s always said in 2044, “Now there’s no more problems.” Alright, but what a sadness.

“The Beast” world premiered in competition at the Venice Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.

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The launching pad for Bertrand Bonello ’s new picture “The Beast” (“La Bete”) is a 1903 short story by Henry James called “The Beast in the Jungle.” Seen by some James scholars as an autobiographical expression of rue for a life of inaction, it treats the case of John Marcher, who confides in his acquaintance May Bartram that he lives in fear of an unnamable catastrophe that could upend his life, and the life of anyone close to him. She claims to get what he’s talking about.

“‘You mean you feel how my obsession — poor old thing — may correspond to some possible reality?’

‘To some possible reality.’

‘Then you will watch with me?’”

And so May does. And Marcher’s fear translates into a passivity that compels him to hold May at arm’s length for the rest of his life. At the end of the story, he mourns a love he never allowed himself to have and understands that the catastrophe was his own fear.

In Bonello’s film, the fear belongs to the popular Parisian concert pianist Gabrielle Monnier ( Lea Seydoux ), who, around the time of the great 1910 flood of France’s City of Lights, confesses this fear to Louis ( George MacKay ), a young Englishman with whom she soon begins a tentative liaison. But the trouble they encounter has nothing to do with Gabrielle’s reticence to enter into a romantic relationship with Louis—although that does exist.

Bonello’s not here to tell us that the only thing to fear is fear itself. He’s here to tell us to be afraid—be very afraid. What he delivers is not just a densely packed art movie but the most potent horror picture of the decade so far. A vision of three (actually four) nightmare times, all of them in the same vexed world.

The cataclysms that fall upon Gabrielle—played by a superbly controlled and often heartbreaking Lea Seydoux—aren’t spiritual or conceptual (well, of course, at first, they are), they’re “real,” or Real. They’re corporeal/physical, or simulations of the corporeal physical. And they’re unavoidable. Boy oh boy can you not stop what’s coming. Close that browser window, rewind that video, press mute on the sound system, reset the house alarm, none of it will do you any good. Not even an alteration in the fabric of reality itself—and this seems to occur at least a half dozen times in the picture—will stave off horror. The beast isn’t in the jungle, it’s in the house, and it’s in the air we can only barely breathe when the movie gets to 2044. It is in us; it is us.

Sounds cheerful, right? Well, what can I tell you? Bonello has a way of throwing us into an enhanced vision of the degrading noise of contemporary life that’s all the more engaging for being so even-handed and deliberate. I mentioned three timelines that are actually four—the movie is framed, kind of, by a green-screen session in which Seydoux, possibly playing Gabrielle, possibly playing herself, is coached through paces for a scene in which she actually apprehends “the beast” and lets out a blood-curdling scream. The image degenerates into a gorgeous abstract mural of pixels. Digitization is here both a source of ravishing sights and sounds and an Excedrin headache of aural and visual glitch. The movie then bounces through three time periods: 1910, 2044—where Gabrielle’s character seeks to abolish her reincarnation torment through a “DNA purge”—and most terrifyingly, 2014, wherein “Gabby” is housesitting in L.A. and targeted by the angry incel version of MacKay’s Louis—Louis Lewansky, who’s 30 and never been with a woman despite his “magnificence,” and who’s now getting ready to avenge himself.

Dolls are a recurring motif here—there are old-fashioned ones made for fans of the pianist Gabby, and unhelpful talking doll in the Hollywood house, and a walking, talking A.I. helper (played by Guslagie Malanda , as impressive here in a relatively small role as she was in the lead of 2022’s “ Saint Omer ”). An electrical fire figures in the 1910 sequence; a malware attack on a laptop is one of the insane blowups in the 2014 scenario. There are bits and pieces here that feel Lynchian, especially in the Los Angeles scenes, during which Gabrielle is fascinated/repulsed by a TV singing contest show that feels like it might have sprung full blown from the creator of “Twin Peaks.” Then there’s the fact that the love song recurring throughout shows up at the very end, sung in its original version by, well Roy Orbison. But unlike Lynch, Bonello has a decidedly un-obscure point to make. Mainly about how the pursuit of the authentic in life is invariably thwarted by roadblocks of humanity’s own making. (Although one supposes that the eighth episode of the 2018 “Twin Peaks” season treated that theme in a relatively unambiguous way.)

“There must be beautiful things in this chaos,” Gabrielle tries to reassure the movie’s scariest version of Louis at one point. Bonello, and this movie’s, greatest dread is that someday a terrible order will emerge, one that will make whatever beauty remains disappear. 

Glenn Kenny

Glenn Kenny was the chief film critic of Premiere magazine for almost half of its existence. He has written for a host of other publications and resides in Brooklyn. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

• Léa Seydoux as Gabrielle
• George MacKay as Louis
• Kester Lovelace as Tom
• Julia Faure as Sophie
• Guslagie Malanda as Poupée Kelly
• Dasha Nekrasova as Dakota
• Martin Scali as Georges
• Elina Löwensohn as La voyante
• Marta Hoskins as Gina
• Félicien Pinot as Augustin
• Laurent Lacotte as L'architecte
• Xavier Dolan as Interviewer (voice)
• Bertrand Bonello
• Guillaume Bréaud

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Four misfits – Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrison (Momoa), Henry (Hansen), Natalie (Myers) and Dawn (Brooks) – find themselves struggling with ordinary problems when they are suddenly pulled through a mysterious portal into the Overworld: the bizarre, blocky wonderland that we know and mine extensively love.  To get back home, they’ll have to master this world (and protect it from evil things like piglins and zombies, too) while embarking on a magical quest with an unexpected, expert crafter, Steve (Black).  Together, their adventure will challenge all five to be bold and to reconnect with the qualities that make each of them uniquely creative…the very skills they need to thrive back in the real world. 

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Apollo 13: survival.

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Tense recreation of history in gripping space survival docu.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that the documentary Apollo 13: Survival provides a compilation of recordings and recreations of historical events that could be too intense for young or sensitive viewers. The events depicted here involve three astronauts in a space shuttle that malfunctioned, making their survival…

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Three astronauts in a space shuttle that has malfunctioned struggle to survive w

One use of "s--t" and one of "Jesus Christ."

Adults are seen smoking a lot of cigarettes, including in workplaces.

Married spouses share a kiss.

NASA and its space program employees are the heroes of this story, even though e

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The astronauts, their crew members, and their families all demonstrate courage a

When the world comes together with a common purpose, and when our shared earth a

The film presents the reality that NASA's space programs were led by predominant

Violence & Scariness

Three astronauts in a space shuttle that has malfunctioned struggle to survive while their families and colleagues wait on earth. Their chance of survival is at one point as low as 10%. The recreation of that infamous sequence of events is full of tension. People experience fear, take risks, and push their physical endurance. There is mention and footage of losing astronauts in failed rocket launches and footage of the Vietnam War and 1960s-era riots following high-profile assassinations.

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Sex, Romance & Nudity

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Products & Purchases

NASA and its space program employees are the heroes of this story, even though end credits remind us that the malfunction of the Apollo 13 was due to human error on pre-maintenance. Many media outlets are seen in archive footage.

Positive Role Models

The astronauts, their crew members, and their families all demonstrate courage and teamwork in the face of overwhelming challenges and poor odds for survival. One astronaut is unable to fly the mission after exposure to a disease before takeoff, and he still works tirelessly on behalf of the team, as do all of the control center members. People around the world prayed and pulled for the astronauts' safe return.

Positive Messages

When the world comes together with a common purpose, and when our shared earth and resources are put into perspective, world peace seems possible. Humans are capable of spectacular feats.

Diverse Representations

The film presents the reality that NASA's space programs were led by predominantly, if not solely, White men in the 1960s and early 1970s. As such, the documentary serves as a representation of a time, place, and specific culture. It shows dedicated, intelligent, hardworking men serving a common purpose for science and for history. Their wives also played a role embodying the courage and support of families left behind. Archival footage shows people from countries all around the world following the news and hoping for a safe landing for the shuttle crew.

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Parents need to know that the documentary Apollo 13: Survival provides a compilation of recordings and recreations of historical events that could be too intense for young or sensitive viewers. The events depicted here involve three astronauts in a space shuttle that malfunctioned, making their survival uncertain, while families and colleagues waited on earth. People experience fear, take risks, push their physical endurance, and demonstrate courage in the face of overwhelming challenges and odds. There is mention and footage of losing astronauts and friends in previous failed rocket launches, and footage of the Vietnam War and 1960s-era riots following high-profile assassinations. NASA and its space program employees (mostly White men) are the heroes of this story, even though end credits remind us that the malfunction of the Apollo 13 was due to human error during pre-maintenance. There's footage of adults smoking cigarettes, including in the workplace, and one use of "s--t" and "Jesus Christ." To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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What's the Story?

In 1970, NASA sent a new rocket into space with the mission of landing on the moon again, events at the heart of APOLLO 13: SURVIVAL. Using archival interviews and recordings from the mission itself, the documentary recreates the harrowing days between liftoff and splashdown when the spaceship malfunctioned and the astronauts and control center crew had to think fast to save the men on board. These included astronauts Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, and John Swigert. Meanwhile, back home, Marilyn Lovell and other wives and family members waited and prayed.

Is It Any Good?

Space buffs may not feel they learn a lot new from this documentary, but for the lay audience, there's plenty here to find enticing. Apollo 13: Survival combines "rare access" to recordings from the infamous 1970 mission and archival interviews with "reconstructive techniques" where visual coverage was limited. This means footage from inside the space capsule, with events narrated by the protagonists themselves. As the title alludes, it's a story of survival, and one which -- however briefly -- brought the world together.

The mix of audiovisual elements offers real insight into both the technicalities of what went wrong (and right) on that mission, as well as the human component -- the crew's rising heartrates, control center jitters, the wives and children waiting and praying at home, newscasters moved to near tears, and crowds filling the streets to witness the landing. Witnesses offer a poetic view of earth, seen tranquilly from space as a "grand oasis in the vastness of space," where countries take shape without boundaries, and where a peace unknown to actual inhabitants of the planet reigns.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the courage and teamwork the astronauts, their control center team, and their families demonstrated during the Apollo 13: Survival crisis. How would panicking have compromised the situation? When has being courageous or working in a team helped you in your own life?

Why explore space? Why have generations of space programs been so determined to explore the moon and other planets? What rationales does the documentary give?

The film offers some insights into American society of the late 1960s and early 1970s. What stood out to you? What were some events of those years mentioned in the film?

In the movie, a newscaster suggests the Apollo 13 crisis was a "parable for earth" -- a spinning spaceship, all human astronauts on it, running out of oxygen and water but nowhere to go. Do you agree with this analogy? What is the environmental message here?

What questions were you left with after this documentary? Where could you find more information about Apollo 13 and other space missions before and after it?

Movie Details

• On DVD or streaming : September 5, 2024
• Cast : Jim Lovell , Marilyn Lovell , Gene Kranz
• Director : Peter Middleton
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Netflix
• Genre : Documentary
• Topics : STEM , History , Science and Nature , Space and Aliens
• Character Strengths : Courage , Teamwork
• Run time : 98 minutes
• MPAA rating : NR
• Award : Common Sense Selection
• Last updated : September 4, 2024

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This Historical Epic is the Best Movie About NASA

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From Apollo 13 to Interstellar and Hidden Figures to First Man , among others, Hollywood has succeeded in capturing the history and spirit of NASA many times over. Through technical prowess, harrowing narratives, and three-dimensional characters, these films manage to convey the truly awe-inspiring nature of space travel , along with all the scientific ingenuity and danger that comes with it. However, as great as these movies are, none of them is as sprawling and intimately compelling as The Right Stuff . Based on Tom Wolfe 's 1979 book and released in 1983, the Philip Kaufman -directed epic takes audiences behind the scenes of the 16 years America engaged in fierce competition with the Soviet Union over space travel and exploration. Clocking in at a lengthy 193 minutes and featuring a star-studded ensemble cast, The Right Stuff distinguishes itself as the premier cinematic account of NASA thanks to its docudrama approach to storytelling and detailed depiction of the various challenges experienced by America's first astronauts and their loved ones.

What is 'The Right Stuff' About?

The Right Stuff chronicles key events that occurred before and during NASA's Mercury space program, which included America's first-ever missions involving human spaceflight . The film begins in 1947, when test pilot Chuck Yeager ( Sam Shepard ) breaks incredible new ground by flying an X-1 aircraft in excess of 662 mph , becoming the first person to travel faster than the speed of sound. Years later, NASA is founded, and the U.S. government searches for the best and boldest test pilots, putting them through a litany of rigorous physical and psychological tests to see if they can cut it in the unforgiving environment of outer space. Ultimately, seven pilots are recruited for the ambitious Mercury program and thrust into a white-hot media spotlight. Though the astronauts are thrilled by the prospects awaiting their newfound celebrity status, the risks inherent to space travel prove challenging for them and their loved ones.

As the Soviet Union gains ground over America in the Space Race, pressure mounts to put the Mercury astronauts ahead. They make a tremendous leap in 1961 when Alan Shepard ( Scott Glenn ) becomes the first American to travel into space, and in February 1962 , John Glenn ( Ed Harris ) is the first American to orbit the Earth. In the meantime, controversy embroils astronaut Gus Grissom ( Fred Ward ) after a mishap during re-entry. With the Mercury astronauts taking center stage, Chuck Yeager and his fellow test pilots are overshadowed and rendered relics of the past, but that doesn't stop Yeager from nearly losing his life in an attempt to break an altitude record, proving once again that he possesses the titular physical and psychological fortitude that helped kickstart America's journey into space.

'The Right Stuff' Balances Epic Scope With Intimate Storytelling

A film about flight, NASA, and space travel wouldn't be complete without spectacle, state-of-the-art special effects, and an immersive soundscape, and The Right Stuff succeeds on all fronts. From Chuck Yeager's groundbreaking 1947 flight in the X-1 to John Glenn's near-death re-entry in 1962, the epic recreates the earliest days of America's space program with an appropriately adrenalized sense of adventure . Thanks to the ingenious know-how of effects artists Jordan Belson (whose experimental approach recalls 2001: A Space Odyssey 's psychedelic imagery) and Garry Gutierrez , the film's aerial sequences soar through various practical visual techniques , accompanied by a propulsive, ear-shattering Oscar-winning sound design that constantly reminds how any moment could be a pilot's last.

While it never fails to deliver on a technical level, The Right Stuff is more than an effects-laden thrill ride. More episodic than something resembling a traditional narrative structure, Kaufman's film is largely character-driven, with its ensemble exploring a variety of personalities and perspectives . As the breaker of the sound barrier, Chuck Yeager's quiet and stoic nature lays an honorable foundation for the men who would follow in his footsteps, and John Glenn's aw-shucks nature serves as a perfect foil to Gus Grissom and Gordon Cooper's ( Dennis Quaid ) good ol' boy arrogance. And for their part, the politicians, scientists, and media personalities behind the scenes often tie themselves in knots trying to control the fiercely independent Mercury astronauts or, as Yeager refers to them, "spam in a can."

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Meanwhile, the astronauts' wives play a crucial role, particularly regarding internalizing the heightened danger their husbands face every time they enter a plane or capsule. One woman acknowledges that "62 men in the last 36 weeks" have perished, making for a staggering death toll that would give pause to even the most fearless individuals. While the astronauts are crowned overnight rock stars and dropped front and center into a media frenzy, they're often grounded by the unwavering support and honest nature of their loved ones. If the film has anything to say about their contribution to the Space Race, it's that alongside every astronaut stood an exceptional woman.

'The Right Stuff' Underperformed at the Box Office But Became a Classic

Upon its debut in October 1983, The Right Stuff garnered praise from critics and audiences, but the latter proved disappointing in terms of turnout . Made for $27 million , a considerable price tag by that year's standards, Philip Kaufman's historical epic grossed a mere $21.5 million domestically. Much has been made about the film's initial lackluster performance , with Kaufman insisting the film should've been marketed with images of test pilots rather than astronauts donning shiny suits. "I kept thinking, you've got a bunch of great-looking guys in cool leather jackets, and you're not going with that?" he said in an interview with Vulture.

Despite falling relatively flat with theatrical audiences, the film was universally acclaimed, receiving eight Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture) and winning four. As is often the case with great films, the passage of time has been kind to The Right Stuff , with some considering it one of the best films of the 1980s . Thirty years after it hit theaters, the Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry as a film of "cultural, historical, or aesthetic significance." A singular American classic, The Right Stuff remains unique and exhilarating not only for its depiction of NASA's incredible history but also as a beloved snapshot of a bygone era that was unapologetic in its celebration of heroic exceptionalism.

The Right Stuff

The Right Stuff is available to rent on Amazon Prime in the U.S.

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