You probably wouldn’t have heard of the tiny drama “Beasts of the Southern Wild” had Benh Zeitlin’s film not won two very important film festival awards: the Camera d’Or for best first feature at Cannes and the dramatic Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.

But with great honor comes great responsibility — or at least great expectations. And “Beasts of the Southern Wild” doesn’t quite live up to its hype. It’s too filled with the tropes of disaster cinema to be heralded as an original masterpiece.