Beast: More of a whimper than a roar

In this film about a killer lion, Idris Elba doesn’t phone it in — it’s worse than that. He acts, but not very well.

Idris Elba as Dr. Nate Samuels in Beast, directed by Baltasar Kormákur.

Beast (MA15+)
In cinemas
★½

In Beast, Idris Elba is pursued by a ferocious feline with only one thing on its mind. Rest assured, the beast is not Rebel Wilson and this is not a sequel to Cats.

Then again, I’d rather watch Cats 2 than re-watch this survival thriller. I look for the best in every film but this one makes that difficult.

There is one positive: the CGI lion, the titular beast, is impressive.

When he appears, smashing through the windshield of a 4WD or turning humans into pin cushions, it’s Jaws in the jungle.

I also respect his attitude. While the title refers to him, there are other beasts, such as the poachers who, in the opening scene, shoot dead the rest of his pride.

Yet when he meets game park manager Martin Battles (South African actor Sharlto Copley) who is out to stop the poachers, he sees no distinction and does what an angry lion will do.

And that’s about it. This movie is directed by Icelandic filmmaker Baltasar Kormakur, who is drawn to humans versus nature scenarios (The Deep, Everest, Adrift).

Here’s the set-up. Elba is Nate Samuels, a recently widowed doctor from New York City. He takes his two teen daughters, Meredith (Iyana Halley) and Norah (Leah Sava Jeffries), to South Africa, their mother’s homeland.

It’s an attempt to re-bond the family. We learn, via dream sequences, that Nate and his wife separated before she died. “I failed those kids.’’

They are met by Nate’s old friend Martin and, soon afterwards, by the apex predator. Martin tells his friend, perhaps with the idea that he’s still a chance to be 007, not to rumble with the king of the jungle. “That is not a fight that you are designed to win.”

Nate ignores this advice so he can protect both his daughters and the plot. It would be a short film if it accurately showed one unarmed man fighting a 300kg lion. “He’s a big one,’’ the poachers note.

I like Elba — he was perfect in the TV crime series Luther — but I wonder about his range. He doesn’t phone it in in this film. It’s worse than that. He acts, but not very well.

To be fair, he is working with a weak script (Ryan Engle). The most overused phrase in this 93-minute film is “Are you okay?” I’m paraphrasing here but it goes something like this:

Meredith and Norah to Martin: “Are you okay?” Martin: “I’ve had my leg chewed off by a lion but otherwise I’m okay.”

I look forward to seeing Elba in George Miller’s new film, Three Thousand Years of Longing, which David Stratton has reviewed this week. With any luck it will let him put this unfortunate beast behind him.

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DC League of Super Pets (PG)
In cinemas
★★★½

The animated action adventure DC League of Super Pets is tonnes of fun for young and old. It is witty, intelligent, thrilling and has an all-star voice cast, including a new candidate for Best Batman Ever: one Keanu Reeves.

As with the best superhero movies, this one, drawn from DC Comics, pokes whimsical fun at itself, its rival Marvel, the whole business of movie-making and the world in general.

WEALTHY PERSON ACTUALLY GOES TO JAIL, reads the TV news headline when Lex Luthor, the billionaire baddie of Metropolis, is put behind bars.

Reeves’s Batman has some great lines, including a joke about Morgan Freeman. The pick of the litter, though, is when he sees Superman’s dog, Krypto, with a Bruce Wayne squeeze doll clamped in his jaws. “That better be a licensed toy or I will freak out.”

As the title suggests, Batman, Superman (John Krasinski), Wonder Woman (Jameela Jamil from The Good Place) and the rest of the Justice League are secondary characters. The stars are the motley gang of animals who come into their lives.

The action opens with a crying baby Superman being dispatched from about-to-explode Krypton. At the last moment his puppy jumps into the spaceship.

Fast forward and Superman and super dog Krypto (Dwayne Johnson) are best buddies. Their day-to-day life together — where routine is rule No 1 — will ring true for anyone with a dog under their roof.

“This is unpleasant for both of us,’’ wanting-a-walk Krypto says as he plants his bottom on sleeping Superman’s face.

“Walk” means the two of them soaring through the skies of Metropolis. The spectacular animation is the work of Sydney-based visual effects outfit Animal Logic, which has George Miller’s Oscar winner Happy Feet on its CV, along with Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby.

The antipodean connection continues in the voice cast, with Kiwi actor Jemaine Clement as Aquaman and Australian entertainers Julia Morris and TV vet Dr Chris Brown as evil guinea pigs.

All the guinea pigs have superpowers. This cavy army is led by a hairless, archly smart guinea pig named Lulu (Kate McKinnon). A former test animal in Luthor’s laboratory, she leaves him for dead in the supervillain stakes. “You want the truth?’’ she says to the lasso-of-truth wielding Wonder Woman. “The boots are a bit much.”

With the superheroes out of action, for reasons I will not spoil, it’s up to the pets, led by Krypto, who looks like a labrador, and another dog, a boxer named Ace (Kevin Hart), to stop the rampaging rodents and save the world.

They are joined by a paranoid squirrel (Diego Luna), near-blind turtle (Natasha Lyonne) and pot-bellied pig with weight issues (Vanessa Bayer).

As with the guinea pigs, this team of wannabe pets (we first meet them in an animal shelter) are invested with sudden and unexpected superpowers, for reasons I’ll leave for viewers to discover. Ditto for which pet ends up with which superhero.

Alongside the humour, there’s an emotional depth to this 105-minute movie, directed and co-written by Jared Stern. He and co-writer John Whittington wrote the Lego Batman and Lego Ninjago movies.

It’s Krypto, cover name Bark Kent, who feels the first jolt to the heart when Superman falls in love with reporter Lois Lane (Olivia Wilde).

He worries that he and “Supes” will no longer be best friends.

It’s Ace who talks him through this. He recalls his own puppy-hood and how he ended up in an animal shelter.

As a dog lover I admit his story almost brought a tear to my eye.

If you love someone, Ace says, you will do anything for them, including letting them go. When it comes to dogs having unconditional love, it is as Batman says when Luther boasts that all billionaires own rocket ships: “That is true”.

I saw this movie in a cinema packed with kids. They loved it and so did I.

As soon as I returned home I took my canine companion, Jack, to the park. It was a sunny Sydney afternoon and this big-hearted movie made me want to share it with him.

A scene from DC League of Super Pets