You can't blame Dick Maas for not trying. This movie is probably not going to disappoint you if you're are a fan of his much older work. You might think Maas learned from his past mistakes, but his directing style is not going anywhere and it is still utterly horrible. The whole plot (or lack there of) is awfully slow, nothing really happens until the lion shows up and after that the whole film seems oddly paced. I won't go into details to avoid spoilers. The lion was supposed to be done entirely with digital effects, but because of the lack of budget they had to resort to animatronics, for which you could applaud the makers. Sadly, everything falls apart quickly. Whenever you see the lion, it's never believable. Not only because of how it looks, but also it's behavior. The action is entirely unsatisfying and the whole movie falls flat after the hour mark. The acting ranged from horrible to decent, which might add to the camp factor of the movie.
This movie was supposed to fall into the "So Bad It's Good" category, like most of Maas' films, but this genre is overrun by movies that made this an art form (look at the library of "The Asylum", movies like "Sharknado" and it's sequels). This movie doesn't get to that standard. What you do get is a movie that doesn't know what it wants to be, a thriller, a horror, a comedy or an action movie. Selling a movie on just the idea of a lion going on a rampage in Amsterdam isn't something you can base a complete movie on this way in 2016.
It comes down to a nice try to revive the 80's bad horror movie, something Sam Raimi recently achieved beautifully with his Evil Dead franchise. But you need more self-awareness as a filmmaker to get this to work in this day and age.
The movie supposedly cost around 3 million to make, around three times the budget most other Dutch films are made for, so it's surprising the movie feels like a bad 10.000 dollar movie.
As stated before; if you like films by Dick Maas, you might enjoy it and feel the nostalgia coming over you. But wait for it to come to Netflix and watch it on a rainy Sunday, instead of paying for a theater ticket. For all other people; save your money and don't bother with this.
