Idris Elba in Beast. Photo: Laura Mulligan/Universal Pictures

BEAST
Directed by Baltasar Kormákur
Certificate: 15
☆☆☆☆

CRAZED animal takes revenge on humans for being quite the most awful species on the planet.

It’s a story that has been so well told (think King Kong for starters) that finding a creature who hasn’t done this on celluloid already is increasingly difficult.

In this hilarious Idris Elba vehicle, we are taken to South Africa where a bloodthirsty lion seeks payback after poachers kill his pride.

Dr Nate Samuels (Elba) and his two children Meredith (Iyana Halley) and Norah (Leah Jeffries) are going on a holiday. It isn’t just any break. They are mourning the loss of their wife/mother, and returning to where she grew up. It is an attempt to heal, a pilgrimage. It is also a stage for family baggage to be strewn messily about, giving the characters gripes that need to be solved.

And how better to do so when your fleshy bits are but half an inch away from a set of massive, chomping jaws.

They meet old friend Martin (Sharlto Copley), a ranger who takes on poaching gangs. He tells of the struggles he faces to keep animals safe, and of the wondrous, dangerous world he inhabits. With this scene setting, which includes a plot-forming discourse on the habits of lion prides, the family clamber on to a dusty 4X4 and set off to see the sights.

Disaster, of course, strikes shortly after the family back story is revealed: a rogue beast is out there and ripping people into bite-sized cat food chunks. Naturally it’s only a matter of time before the family come into contact with the wound-up big cat.

Everything that could go wrong does – with each scenario (the broken radio, the empty fuel tank) well telegraphed in advance.

This sits in the same place as Tremors, Gremlins, Snakes On A Plane and even the hard-to-better giant shark comedy The Meg.

A ridiculous premise played with all seriousness, a nice range of jump-out-your-chair scares, and a cast clearly throwing everything they can at a no-frills plot and a script that the Plain English Campaign could heartily get behind – this shlocky safari B-movie doesn’t pretend to be anything but. It is glorious for it.